Heat Weirdlastname I was always a night owl. As a kid, I would sleep until 15 minutes before I needed to leave for school. Clothes on, breakfast in, out the door. Saturdays, I would sleep until 10 or 11. (Marching band at Saturday morning football games killed that.) Nights were always my best time. Best for thinking, … Read more
If we spent as much energy teaching our sons as we do worrying about our daughters, we wouldn’t need to worry so much about our daughters. “Boys will be boys” is a cop-out. It does a disservice to all people. To girls and women, obviously, because it leads to a society where we live in … Read more
In conjunction with the premise behind yesterday’s post, I’ve been reducing my screen clutter. This has been an ongoing project, but I’ve ramped it up a bit in the last two or three weeks. I’ve unsubscribed from email lists that I tried out that turned out to be meh. I’ve unsubscribed from most retail. (It’s … Read more
We have too much physical stuff, too much emotional stuff, too much junk to eat, not enough exercise or sleep or meaningful connections with people. Because— Society values and promotes being busy being stressed being underslept fast food large portions cheap everything convenient (to accommodate busy) sitting reactive medicine over preventative pills over natural social … Read more
The last couple of years, most or all of my classes (as a whole—not every individual student) had self-control issues. Inability to stay quiet, to accept directions, to follow through on assignments, regardless of where the task fell on the fun meter. In extreme cases, yelling and swearing. Unrelenting back-talk. Things said to me that … Read more
This popped up in my Facebook memories the other day: “Looking up info about my student loan … It will accrue $77.45 in interest in the next 25 days. This thing has got to go.” (It’s long gone!) Years ago, I saw an exercise where the writer* took a calendar. She calculated how much she … Read more
I taught a hip hop class second semester last year. Damien was one of the kids in it. He was a neat kid. At the end of the year, 6th grade promoted, and he moved on to junior high. Except he only went to two days (and that’s only because my district started already). As … Read more
I wrote Thursday about how some of the habits that made me a great student were actually reaction to trauma, and I wondered how my life would be different if any of my teachers saw red flags instead of the ideal. I need to follow up with that today to clarify that I don’t blame … Read more
Last year, some of my band classes did a month-long composition activity. I asked students for written feedback: tell me if you liked the activity or not and why. Two reports read the following: “I liked it because it was easy.” “I didn’t like it because it was too easy.” Isn’t that funny? First, that … Read more
I’ve always had good penmanship. I got Bs in school because my cursive didn’t slant–it was straight up and down–but I don’t think that makes it poor. Anyway. Most of the time nowadays, I print. For a long time, when I would write quickly (taking notes, for example), it was sloppy, but when I slowed … Read more