I am not entirely sure when it happened, but at some point in the last 50 years, teachers became “Other.” They became people who come from outside of the community in which they teach. Teachers became antagonists in a war for our nation’s soul. They became masters of indoctrination as …
Teenagers are a construct that has propelled popular culture forward for 100 years. But, prior to the end of the first World War, they mostly didn’t exist. It wasn’t that somehow people skipped from age 12 to 20, but rather that there was no pause between childhood and adulthood before …
I ran across an incredibly insightful tweet this week, one that I could not ignore or get out of my head since I saw it: “Forgiveness is not a hot tub time machine. Forgiveness brings about a new reality.” We cannot go back in time to before we caused others …
In November of 2010, I became the first ever Online Community Manager for Edmodo. I was the 13th employee at a startup that was barely two years old. It was my first remote position, and also my first role outside of public education. This is how I framed it to …
Feeling safe is a privilege. Not everyone does. I don’t fear for my life in the way that many Ukrainians are just waiting for Russia to rein down upon them. I don’t worry about domestic abuse or being tracked by a jealous spouse. I don’t fear others around me as …
I was introduced to the graphic novel, Maus (I and II), in my second year of teaching. I took over an existing Gifted and Talented program from a master teacher who had already been using the book in her classroom. Upon reading the book, I knew exactly why it had …
COVID and Vaccination politics are making for some very strange communication coming from my children’s school district, Littleton Public Schools. This week, every parent with at least one student in the district received a notice that Littleton was discontinuing the use of school buildings as community vaccination clinics. On the …
The Victorian era (and the Regency era that preceded) is fascinating to me. It was a time of great change, and of great reckoning for entrenched ideas of class and gender. It was a time in which marriage and the unions of property and status were major concerns (at least …
In the beginning of the (current) pandemic, Kara and I decided to fundamentally change our living room. We decided to put away “the play room,” an ever expanding set of toys that were shoved into a 8 x 4 Kallax. This was an acknowledgement that our children were no longer …
It is a great wonder to me that Popcorn ceilings still exist. They have never been particularly attractive, even when every ceiling was covered with this polystyrene concoction. My particular Popcorn ceiling is good for dampening the noise from my three children and covering over whatever cosmetic imperfections would otherwise …