Stories
Sea Turtles Teach Enduring Lessons
The first book I read this summer for sheer fun was Mary Alice Monroe’s environmental fictional novel The Beach House. Although…
Embracing All That I Am in Education
Sometimes you do not realize how much your identity plays a role in how you interact with others. Your values…
My Lifelong Lesson: Learning to Learn
Learn to learn. That has been my educational philosophy all my life.
An Endless Supply of DIGNITY PIE
Dignity is not a zero sum game. There is an endless supply of dignity pie.
The Immediate and the New
Don’t pass it by –the immediate, the real, the only, the yours. —Henry James, in a letter to Edith Wharton…
Collective Joy
JOY is my favorite word in the English language. I like it for its impact in just a few letters.…
A Task to Fulfill
“Joy — it’s not just a gift. In a sense it’s also a duty, a task to fulfill.” (from Astonishments…
Time to Plant Tears
Lately, the world has been opening up here in our corner of Los Angeles, and I’ve been crying, a lot.…
Facing Othello
We talked about race and othering, about passion versus reason, about women finding their voices, about how easy it can…
On Trusting Silence
In and out of school, among the people I know best, I sense an unmeasurable growth taking place, the kind…
Voice, Choice, and Titles Long Forgotten
It was a book about a collective of children who survived the end of the world. Alone in a world…
Finding a Solution
I work with small groups of students who have flunked Algebra and Geometry. I help them understand the material enough…
A Moment for Michael
Sometimes, our best lessons are the ones we hope we never have to teach.
The Hand-Off
What I felt about each student couldn’t be found in the cells of excel or in the margins of my…
Engaging Students Across Culture and Time
On New Year’s Day in 2020, I was in Shanghai with my family. We watched the ball drop in New…
Snow Days: A Reflection
During the casual chitchat that preceded a meeting of Maryland school heads amid a late January snowstorm, everyone was discussing…
Speech Text to a Mountain: A Hybrid Quartet
Editor’s note: Listen to Stephen Valentine narrate his story (9 minutes, 11 seconds). 1. Last summer, when my family’s quarantine…
Teaching Seventh-Graders: Midwinter’s Energy Boost
Tired. Depleted. Grumpy. The pandemic is wearing. We are long past novelty and the adrenalin that carried us through summer. In our community, numbers were…
Seeking Sprawl
Lately I’ve come back to the same image when I fantasize about having every student back in the classroom, particularly…
Pandemic Teaching: Transcending Trauma, One Step At a Time
The following names have been fictionalized. What do three minutes in an in-person classroom look like during a pandemic? Minute…
Becoming More Chill
The other day, I overheard a student share with his classmate that he liked my class because, he said, “It’s…
Relying on Your Own Mind
A recent issue of Time magazine launched the new “Kid of the Year” recognition. Along with this year’s selection of…
Being Grateful During the Pandemic
We’ve had more than 250 days of Covid madness if you start the count on Friday, March 13, 2020. In…
Belonging in School and Life
The Cambridge Dictionary defines the verb to belong as “feeling happy or comfortable in a situation.” In my own life,…
Be Particular
When my grandmother found out I was pregnant, she urged me to spend the summer in Georgia with family. She…
Newly Vulnerable — and Empowered
I think I always knew that I was not smart like the other kids in school; I was smart in…
Cultivate Change Agents
Google’s education evangelist said at a conference in San Francisco in 2016, stop asking kids what they want to be…
Heard, Seen, and Real
When I signed on to teach at a school in Georgia at age 24, I assumed it would be an…
Holding School in The Great Outdoors
Photo caption: At Kent School in Maryland, Crazy Creek Camp Chair for the win! Inspired by a new UnderArmour Team…