Each and every summer I have a Back to School anxiety dream. While each year is slightly different, they are all variations on the same theme. It’s the first day of school and I’m not prepared. Some years, I’m a student and I miss the …
I discovered the joy of audiobooks as an adult. I had a 45-minute commute to my first teaching job. While I love the radio, it got old fast. But my mom had purchased the first few Harry Potter books (on cassette) and offered them to …
Even though I live in Colorado, I am not the most outdoorsy of people. Most of my summers growing up were spent in my air-conditioned house, reading. Each year, I managed to work my way through the library’s summer reading list. I’m no longer a teen …
I’ve always loved to bake; other people love to eat those baked goods. My senior year of high school, I decided to make a small business out of it. Each and every day, I baked and wrapped cookies to sell the next day at school. …
As a social studies teacher, I had MANY difficult conversations with my teen students, including race and racism. My brown and black students already knew what I was talking about because they and their families lived it. I was teaching race and racism to the …
I ❤️ high school juniors. I’ve taught 8-12 grade, but 11th grade is my jam. Juniors are close enough to the end that they are serious about school, but far enough from finishing that they stay focused. But junior year can be stressful. For many …
The strangest spring is about to become the oddest summer in memory. While most of us are no longer under quarantine orders, many of the places we spend our summers – camp, amusement parks, the beach – are still closed or will look very different …
This has been the strangest school year of probably any of our lives. In late winter, everything turned upside down. Quarantine kicked in as school buildings closed and learning moved online. Students and teachers had to make radical changes to the ways they teach, interact, …
We’ve been home for about 2,373 days. I think. If you’re like me, the stress is growing. It’s hard to be nice to the people I’ve spent every living minute with for the last 5 years. Or maybe 6 weeks. To make things even harder …
To say 2020 has had a rocky start is the understatement of the century. Most schools closed VERY abruptly. Teachers had to completely change the way they teach, make it work online, and still carry on during a worldwide pandemic. But teachers just kept teaching. …