Several weeks ago, I was chatting with an acquaintance about school. Our school. The one our children attend classes in each day. Our district, like all others, has a plan for the future, and everyone is adjusting to change. Sometimes, it’s hard to know how to help. It’s hard to know how to ask difficult questions, and it’s hard to know how to get good answers. There isn’t enough time and there isn’t enough space,…
There are a lot of difficult conversations going on around me lately, in every school that I am working in. Everyone is calling for meaningful change, which is never an easy call to answer, and as we begin treading those very deep waters, the threat of drowning in an ocean of need becomes very real. This week, I’m appreciating the fact that the work I’m involved with has been guided by a clear purpose. Much thought went into defining what teachers…
Tomorrow we’ll be kicking off the first session of the WNY Young Writers’ Summer Studio, and I can’t wait! Last week, I had the opportunity to meet with the teachers who will be joining our community, and the idea of engaging adults and kids around common goals as writers and learners is really exciting. I think that we are all very comfortable in our roles as teachers at the front of the room. This collaborative model will…
Within moments of our arrival, the pace became something of an adjustment for me. Seriously. “This place feels so far removed from the rest of the world,” Wanda mentioned, and she was right. I imagine that we all had the opportunity to live a bit differently last week. I know that I worked differently as well. Far removed from the frenzy of our daily lives, we found time enough to wonder and plan and revise and share what…
Teaching can be such an alienating experience. I remember leaving the shelter of my undergraduate program and entering my very first teaching position. Suddenly, the expert voices that I had come to rely upon were gone. The friends that I shared my apartment and my student-teaching placement with had moved across the state. That first classroom full of students and my fabulous mentor-teacher? They became pages in a scrapbook……farewell cards tucked into a box that lives on…