My Spanish-Speaking Family I’ve never considered myself a fluent Spanish speaker. On Christmas, sitting under a table as a kid, I’d listen to my cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents all speak Spanish around me, but I couldn’t participate, so I grew to ignore it. I started taking Spanish classes in middle school. I learned verb…
Tag: Teaching
Church and School:
At long last, it’s the holiday break! Two weeks away from school, grading work, scraped knees, runny noses, and spelling quizzes. A chance to relax and come back refreshed in January. So of course, I started my break by visiting my parents and going to church with them. School and church. At least I’m keeping them…
After “Don’t Say Gay” and “Stop Woke”
It’s October. We’re celebrating LGBTQ+ History Month. Two weeks ago we celebrated National Coming Out Day. We’re finally starting to feel as though autumn isn’t too far off. And kids have been back in school for a month or two already. They’re well on the way to thinking about their grades–report cards, tests, essays. Everything…
“Reunion” by John Cheever
I remember listening to “Reunion” (a very short story by John Cheever) on the New Yorker Fiction Podcast. That was actually the first time I ever heard the story. It might be the first time I was introduced to John Cheever. The reader was Richard Ford, and he noted that the story begins with 2…
Quiet Quitting and Education: Stay the Course?
If I stop now, I’m a quitter. I started teaching in 2017, right after I graduated college with a degree in something I didn’t know how to apply. I thought moving to a rural area of the country with a handful of other twenty-something-year-olds who all wanted to “make a difference” would be an adventure. …
Reality Check: The Afterlives of Indie Musicians
Zane Stroud and I used to be bandmates; we left the band and started new lives, and Zane is now heading in my direction–to become an academic. Zane and his wife Bessie drove Zoe and me to Clearwater Bay to celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival. We took this double date quite seriously, because it was our first…
Writing about Writer’s Block
There are times when I don’t feel like writing a weekly column. This is one of those times. So let’s talk about that. I’ve had a bunch of writing students over the years, and I’ve found that teaching writing makes me a better writer. For one thing, when you’re helping people out of their writer’s…
Homework: A Love Story
As an elementary school teacher, I have never been a fan of homework. During my first year teaching, my Grade-Level Lead Teacher handed me the spelling worksheets and multiple-choice reading activities to send home with the kids each day. I hardly looked at them, and definitely hated grading them. The students with high test scores,…
Snack Time… and Feeling Full
Alright children, we’re going to go outside for a break now. You can bring a toy to play with, your water bottle, yes, Jimmy, a snack if you’d like. Oh, I’m sorry, Tammy, you don’t have a snack? Well, we just had lunch less than an hour ago, did you eat all of it? Oh…
Reason, Religion, Abortion: A Less Tentative Response
A side effect of being an editor is that bad-faith arguments hurt my soul. It’s actually a really interesting thing to feel as it happens. Kind of feels like heartburn. And what’s odd is it starts as a feeling and then I have to figure out what is making me feel that way. I’ve studied…