Teaching
Teachers: Writers never write one thing at a time. Stop ruining children.
When asked how to combat writer’s block, my answer is always the same: If you have writer’s block, you don’t have enough writing projects. My list of writing projects currently includes: A novel under contract A nonfiction book under contract A middle grade novel under contract A piece for Parents magazine A piece for Seasons…
Read MoreThinking is a part of the writing process, damn it
I was teaching storytelling last week at Miss Porter’s School. I sent the girls off for an hour to write and craft their stories, and when they returned, I asked them how they did. “Not good at all,” one of the girls said. When I asked why, she explained that she spent the first 30…
Read MoreReputation matters even more when the world is small.
Filed under “It’s a small world” comes these two gems: Back in March of 1999, my partner, Bengi, and I worked as DJ’s at our second wedding ever. While reminiscing about that first year of our DJ career recently, we wondered how life turned out for those first few clients. It turns out that it’s…
Read MoreBoys in skirts
It’s been done before under similar circumstances, but every time it happens, I feel great joy and hope for the world. A short-sighted, authoritarian school regime arbitrarily decrees that shorts are not permitted in accordance with the school’s purposeless dress code. At the same time, the school maintains that skirts, which are essentially shorts without…
Read MoreA summer camp has adopted my restriction on commenting on physical appearance, and I’m thrilled.
For more than a decade, I’ve been refraining from commenting on student’s physical appearance, both negatively or positively. It’s a policy I explain to parents and students at the beginning of the year, and it’s one that my students have always appreciated. My reasons are many. There are far more important qualities in a child…
Read MoreDumb school officials make dumb decision
I can’t stand stupidity. This is stupidity. The senior class President in Exeter, PA is delivering a speech at commencement. He decides to go off-script and criticize the school for the limited role that the student council makes in decision making. He does not swear. He does not insult anyone specifically. He doesn’t even raise…
Read MoreLast Man Standing
I’ve been teaching in the same elementary school since 1999. This year I said goodbye to my 18th class of students. Spending almost two decades in the same workplace has become an anomaly in America. Americans work in an average of 12 jobs over the course of their lifetime, and changing jobs every five years…
Read MoreShameful Betsy DeVos can’t say what most human beings can say with ease
Here is the Secretary of Education for the United States of America, the caretaker of our public schools, the protector of our children’s future, and also a person who has never taught in a school, never worked in a public school, and never sent her children to a public school, trying her hardest to avoid…
Read MoreI wish my students would accuse me of a war crime
Graduate this kid immediately.
Read MoreI don’t like teachers who act like jerks
Q. My third grade son recently came home in tears saying he didn’t want to go to school anymore because he was punished for talking during silent reading. The teacher kept him in from recess. I think this is horrible. It isn’t a teacher’s job to destroy a child’s love for school. Instead of constant…
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