Heat Weirdlastname I make notes in my phone when I hear something that I want to remember: a quote, a book recommendation, a podcast recommendation, and so on. Going back through my notes? Not always timely. I found this one from May: We have the freedom and the burden to make our own identity It was from … Read more
I wrote over the weekend about K-12 school standards and their inappropriateness. A loud argument in favor of the standards is “kids need to be ready!” Ready for what? Preschoolers need to learn their letters so they’re ready for kindergarten. But we decided that they need that for kindergarten. It’s top-down. We want them to … Read more
Yesterday was the 5th anniversary of Robin Williams’ death. I remember the date because I wrote something about it on Facebook. (I’m not great any more at remembering dates, and I’m not sure this one would have stuck that specifically regardless.) I’m not much of a movies or TV person, but he was phenomenal. Dead … Read more
Some time in the last week was my 16-year anniversary of arriving in Arizona. (I could look at a calendar and figure out which day exactly, but it’s not that important. Early August is good enough.) I came out here to go to grad school. To go somewhere hot and far away. To try to … Read more
One in three children in the US can’t read at grade level. For many people, that means that schools aren’t doing their jobs and we need more accountability and more testing. What if we redefined “at grade level”? I got into this a bit the other day, but we have completely redefined “at grade level” … Read more
We started with The Kid because it was easier. His toys are all in his bedroom except for his LEGOs, which are in “the LEGO Room”—a space in the living room specifically for LEGO. He was having trouble keeping his toys put away. LEGO were mostly in the LEGO Room but not entirely, and rarely … Read more
In my masters program, I had a class on group counseling. It was one of the most interesting classes I’ve ever taken. A tiny slice that I remember: in talking about group therapy, you can put depressed people together and they don’t amplify each other’s depression. You can put anxious people together, and they don’t … Read more
Twenty years ago, I graduated from The College of New Jersey with the education required to become a music teacher. I’ve become really good at teaching. But at music? Mediocre at best. Historically, I’ve been a fast learner without much grit. It took a lot of life before anything crossed my path that I was … Read more
I listened to and loved two very different podcasts recently. The first, titled Not really having this argument, was from Akimbo by Seth Godin. It’s only about 18 minutes long (the subsequent 10 or so minutes are follow-up questions from the previous episode, though there was one in there that I also found compelling, so … Read more
August 1 marked nine months of a post here every day. I made it through the holidays, through the end of the school year, through 2.5 weeks out of town, and now through the beginning of the school year. I feel pretty good about that! There are posts I’ve written that I think are pretty … Read more