December 17, 2019

Depth

“I have always struggled with and ”, I admit to my new student, a soft spoken fourteen year-old boy. He looks down still smiling and attempts to help his fellow dyslexic. “Well, the one with the is like something that happens to you. And the other is like what you do to someone…. I think.” He’s explaining parts of speech without realizing it.
October 7, 2019

“To Err is Human”

Mistakes. So often in our teaching we have created a culture afraid of forming hypotheses. ‘Correctness Mongers’, my teacher in France calls us. Correct → cor + rect, “to bring in accordance with a standard or original, straight” (Etymonline). Why would I want anyone’s thinking, let alone my students’, to constantly align with my own?
September 11, 2019

Indian Summer

Summer is ending. The nights are growing cool. Apple picking and warm cinnamon desserts are on our minds. A season full of beautiful colors and words like <autumn>, with an <n> waiting to shine in <autumnal>. The months of September, October and November have denotations of “seven”, “eight” and “nine”, even though they are the 9th, 10th and 11th months of the year. Stories ready to be raked into a tantalizing, jump-worthy pile.