Reflecting & Storytelling About Teaching
A decade ago, after a week of professional development through the Gilder Lehrman Institute at the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, I wrote a piece on what I’d discovered being a student again: “10 Things I Learned Sitting in a Classroom.” This summer I had another incredible chance to be a social studies learner… Continue reading
Every once in a while, I think about dropping regular discussions of current events from my eighth-grade history and civics class. Why? It would be easier to teach about the dormant past, not the contentious present. There would be fewer… Continue reading
I’ve been listening to “The Circle Game” lately. As a teenager I was pre-nostalgic before I really had anything to remember, and this Joni Mitchell song was one of a dozen loaded onto a mixtape. Later, I played it on nights driving… Continue reading
One of my enduring memories of childhood is going to the house of family friends after a monthly Friday night Shabbat service. My mom would grab a brownie or piece of pie and then … Continue reading
With a protagonist so extra that the pages practically turn on their own, Laurie Frankel’s Family Family slides in enough wisdom about families and those who live in them (that is, all of us) to embroider on generations of samplers. We learn this novel’s expansive definition of family from… Continue reading
During this music concert, tucked into my favorite back-row aisle seat, I’m carried away by these high schoolers’ earnest 1960s musical storytelling and wonder which show will come next. When a West Side Story medley tees off, I sit up with familiarity and anticipation. Because of my dad, I’ve never not known this music… Continue reading
While reading Nina LaCour’s Yerba Buena on a drowsy Los Angeles winter afternoon, I turned the pages in a rush. I wanted to experience what would happen to main characters Emilie and Sara: first as teenagers in their own separate tales of trauma, then as adults eventually finding and re-finding each other in this coming-of-age romance. At the same time, the book’s sensory beauty made me want to notice… Continue reading
To the title of this new book by Regie Routman, I would add a couple of other aspirational hyphenated adjectives: soul-lifting and life-affirming. The Heart-Centered Teacher: Restoring Hope, Joy, and Possibility in Uncertain Times lives up to its promise of renewal. It strives to be a mosaic of sorts: a combination of sometimes searing, sometimes poignant personal stories with on-the-ground insights from decades of experience. Routman believes that we are most fully ourselves when… Continue reading
Back to the Future may be a much-loved movie and a Broadway musical, but it’s also the time-traveling inspiration for Maurene Goo’s Throwback, a deliciously smart YA novel. Samantha Kang is a Korean-American teenager who chafes against her mother’s desire to fit into all the places Sam couldn’t care less about. Throwback starts with a family country club interview that Sam nearly tanks with her questions, driving her mother, Priscilla, bananas. Sam finds refuge… Continue reading
As a teacher and administrator, helping new teachers is one of the best parts of my job. Here are two things I always end up saying at some point… Continue reading
Sarah Cooper 