School: Still Working to Get a Good Idea Off the Ground
The story of the Wright Brothers is not a new one for me. Our summer trips the to Outer Banks have included restless trips to the Wright Brothers Memorial– visits punctuated with sulky complaints of...
View ArticleHope Sticks
You could smell hope in the newly sharpened pencils. You could see it in the stacks and packs of blank notebook paper. You could hear it in the spotless new shoes squeaking on the varnished 100 year...
View ArticleSchool Reform or Reform School?
The third grade Virginia Standards of Learning in Social Studies (Virginia’s version of the Common Core) define community as a place where people work, live, and play (3.10). This definition is too...
View ArticleWord.
I am the daughter of a wonderful cook. While other people were growing up on casseroles, I skipped home to Salad Nicoise and Gazpacho. “We are having a Great Dinner From Life!” my mother would say....
View ArticleIn the Grand “Schema” of Things
I wrote this five years ago, but I am reposting this in honor of my beautiful sister, Thanksgiving, Family, and Reading. My sister and I can read each other’s minds. Really. On Thanksgiving the table...
View ArticleAnother Chapter in Room 204
February was the month of love that we started celebrating in January. January 15 to be exact. Set Up is key. This is true if you are giving a party, telling a joke, or painting a house. It is...
View ArticleUnwrapping December
Discover. Uncover. Reveal. Unwrap. This was the deliberate work of December in Room 204. We started with a stack of brown paper packages tied up with string. I had a master list of titles that...
View ArticleHomework or Home Wreck?
Not all good researchers are teachers, but all good teachers are researchers. We simply can’t help it. We hypothesize. We look for trends. We make connections. We develop questions and we seek...
View ArticleIn the Shade of the Miracle Tree
Throughout my career, I have stood sentinel on the line between church and state. Perhaps you imagine that line as a dividing line between people of different religions—or perhaps that line evokes an...
View ArticleStop and Say Hello
Thirty-seven years ago I became a teacher. I became a teacher because I was passionate about peace and justice and I wanted to make the world a better place. It was the right decision and I grateful...
View ArticleLearning Joy
I know that a lot of learning takes place in Room 204; the children learn from me, and I learn from them. These twenty-five students are twenty-five teachers. We teach each other and, as a result, I...
View ArticleLove’s Signature
Is there room for a eulogy on a teaching blog? In this case, I think there is. I learned so much about writing and living and loving and teaching from my sister. I have written about her on this...
View ArticleWho is Your Inner Editor?
If you write, I am pretty sure you have one. And if you don’t write, I know you do– and I know they’ve had the last word. So far. Some people call them inner critics. I have two and they have...
View ArticleDon’t Forget to Look
My memory is stored in touch, sound, sight, smell, and story. The places I lived and visited as a child are working stage sets for the truth-story mix that fuses my Once with the unfolding Now. That...
View ArticleI Can See Clearly Now
Last February, just days after my sister’s memorial service, I noticed a shadow falling across my line of vision like a curtain. My poetic friends mused about the timing. Yes, I was living in the...
View ArticleOctober Truth
My first real teaching interview was in Stafford County, Virginia. It was still rural then and there were only a handful of elementary schools. Everyone knew that if you were from Emporia you would...
View ArticleA Little School of Citizenship
I became loosely aware of politics in the third grade. President Johnson came to our church. And another time his vice president, Hubert Humphrey, came. I stepped forward to say good morning and that...
View ArticleThe Gift of Silence
What is the gift that children want and cannot give themselves? My third graders are ready with the answer. Silence. This is a secret most children have not yet named for themselves. Silence is a gift...
View ArticleCinderella and the Underground Railroad
This week I announced that we were going on a field trip that did not require signed permission forms. We were going on an imaginary field trip that would require courage, open minds, and a willingness...
View ArticleLiving the Questions with Children
“Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” -Rainer Maria Rilke “What do you know to be true?” This spacious question...
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