Celebrating Community
My son, Baker, was born on October 17th, 2024 at 4:02 am. He cried for the first hour and a half of his life, clearing his lungs, held firmly and safely against my chest. When I first saw him, I recognized him immediately. I’d dreamed of being a mother since I turned thirty, and five years later, becoming a parent […]
According to the Pew Research Center, 97% of Americans own a cellphone. In 2024, nine-in-ten Americans are smartphone users, which is up from 35% in Pew Research Center’s first survey of smartphone ownership from 2011. My own relationship with technology is a standard story for someone born in 1989. I enjoyed my childhood with the most aggressive form of technological […]
After a decade in the classroom, I’ve accepted my first non teaching job since starting my graduate degree in 2014. Even though the position is for an educational nonprofit, and I’ll be working in a school twice a week, it’s the first fall in many years I won’t be returning to a classroom. There will be no dusting off the […]
Over the years I’ve been in various book clubs for varying lengths of time. My current club is a group of nine women, and we’re shooting for a twenty-five-year streak, inspired by the real life events of a member’s mom who achieved such impressive longevity. The club originally started with three members and has tripled in size – in fact […]
Tim O’Brien’s 1990 auto fictional novel based on his time as a young soldier in Vietnam remains a popular choice in high school curriculum across the country. Teaching at a rural school in northern New Hampshire, the average student is removed from the horrors of war and mostly, blessedly, from extreme levels of violence. Although some students do have grandparents […]
“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America; and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” As an educator, I’ve been saying the Pledge of Allegiance more or less every morning, five days a week for many of my thirty-four years of life. This means […]
As a full time teacher, I spend a lot of time considering the question: what should teenagers be reading in 2023? In modern education speak: canon vs. choice. Increasingly, and dishearteningly, I find today’s youth aren’t reading for pleasure. I’ve noticed many of my students lack the ability to imagine worlds beyond the literal and immediate realities they inhabit. Furthermore, I’ve noticed […]
“The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.” ― Hannah Arendt, The Life of the Mind In today’s sharply divided political world, Hannah Arendt’s words, (in reference to the Holocaust) ring true. Arendt’s assertion that people are not inherently evil is an optimistic worldview – the real […]
By the time August rolled around and I hadn’t seen Barbie yet I was beginning to feel I was on an island far far away from womankind. Along with the rest of humanity living in the developed western world, the summer had turned pink. Like many, I had Barbies growing up and cherished looking at mom’s dolls who lived in their original […]
The terms “summer reading” “beach reads” or even “guilty pleasures” are frequently tossed around in July and August. These terms conjure different images and ideas – the dreaded mandatory summer reading for reluctant students, the splashy / trashy cover of a romance with sand stuck in the pages or maybe the various media platforms where you can find lists such […]