Reflecting & Storytelling About Teaching
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
I wanted to read this book not only because Bruni has been one of the most versatile writers in the New York Times over the years (restaurant critic and Rome bureau chief, to name a couple), and not only because I read his book about college, Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be, twice before my older son applied, but also because I had my own brush with vision loss… Continue reading
As my older son heads off to college in a couple of weeks, I’m repeating myself. Even I can tell it’s annoying, but I don’t stop. I tell him: Go to office hours. Get involved in extracurriculars. Don’t skip classes like I did, after finding a boyfriend freshman year. Be curious, find something that interests you, get out to exercise. I’ve told him these things 10 times, 100, and yet I keep saying them like a talisman… Continue reading
After more than two decades of teaching middle school, my answer has simplified over time. Twenty years ago, I would have said that you need to keep students busy, change up activities multiple times a period, make sure they’re doing something. Ten years ago, I would have said that you need to see the infinite potential of middle schoolers… Continue reading
Over winter break, I walked with a childhood friend through a local botanical garden and I found myself briefly ranting about my job. All the COVID changes and restrictions are enough to make you want to leave education, I said. To be clear, I’m not leaving… Continue reading
Craig Taylor’s New Yorkers: A City and Its People in Our Time landed in my library stack when the world was starting to open up again, early spring 2021. At the time I wasn’t sure when I would be visiting the city again. But reading this book felt like walking the streets… Continue reading
Sarah Cooper 