Gack! Here I’d hauled my cookies downtown and raced breathlessly into the lobby, readying myself for a much-needed yoga class, only to be greeted by a sign on the counter announcing a class cancellation. What made it worse was that I’d known the teacher couldn’t find a sub and there would be no class, but […]
Tag Archives: teaching
Navigationally Challenged
A couple of nights ago, we sat in a “preparing your child for high school” meeting at the middle school. Several times, the speaker referred to the date of an open house “which was in the email we sent out last week.” Leaning towards Byron, I whispered, “Did you see a date in that email?” […]
I Suck at Badges. Reading Emails. Following Rules.
“Do you have your badge with you?” He smoothed his lapel, his gum chewing at odds with suit and tie. “Yeah, I do,” I assured him. “It’s buried somewhere in my bag, but if you hang on a minute, I’ll set this other stuff down and dig for it.” My arms were laden with folders, […]
Celebrate the Student
This week, I start my 25th year of teaching college English. The brain, she boggles. Brain has been along for the entire ride–since the first day my clammy hands pushed open the door of a classroom on the University of Idaho campus. Clutching a stack of fresh-off-the-ditto-machine, purple-inked syllabi to my chest, protecting my carefully dot-matrix-printed Instructions […]
She Wouldn’t Be The First Student To Complete Her Work While “Altered”
Stop. Count to ten. Think before replying. That old chestnut is actually fairly hard to apply in a classroom environment–where everyone’s eyes look expectantly at the teacher, where the teacher is supposed to be the font of information, where the energy is alive, where the teacher needs to carry the momentum with snappy decision-making. Particularly […]