religion
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Arrows Into Blossoms
I’ve just finished reading Pema Chodron’s Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears. If you’re not familiar with Chodron, she is perhaps the world’s most famous Tibetan Buddhist American nun, and her works are meant to help Westerners understand the basic precepts of Tibetan Buddhism and apply them usefully in their own Continue reading
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trusting our intentions
I haven’t had much time recently for blogging, or thinking about blogging, but I came across a quote this evening that sums up where my head is at these days, in the classroom and in the world. Remember that you don’t have to like or admire someone to feel compassion for that person. All you Continue reading
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how I saved my teaching career part 7: meditate!
The penultimate post in my series “How I Saved My Teaching Career” appeared on School Gate this morning. In this post, I describe how learning to meditate made me a better teacher. Continue reading
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Who Are Your Gurus?
This week has been an exercise in detachment. I’ve been grading very long and sometimes very difficult final papers, and in a moment of hair-tearing frustration, wrote the post 10 Reasons I Hate Grading Your Assignment. When it went up here and, especially, on my Open Salon blog, there was an outpouring of hilarity, with Continue reading
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in which I do not become a Unitarian after all
(Check out Part One and Part Two of this story.) So two weeks before Christmas, I once again eschewed the Sunday sleep-in, put on my best blue sweater and black jacket, and metroed down to the Unitarian church, this time alone. My nervousness about being there without The Boyfriend Buffer was balanced by my greater Continue reading
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in which I become a Unitarian: part two
(for Part One of this continuing saga, please go here.) On a Sunday morning, The Boyfriend and I took the metro to Vendome, to attend Montreal’s only Unitarian church. We underestimated the travel time, which is unlike us, and arrived in time for the service by the skin of our teeth. We were greeted outside Continue reading
About Me
My job is to teach people to read and write; aside from that, I like to learn things.
Classroom as Microcosm 