Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash Shouts of hilarity rang across the back yard of my cousins’ farm in Indiana. We were playing hide and seek on a Saturday afternoon. Uncle Tim, who was younger than the oldest four cousins, had...

Photo by Ryan Fields on Unsplash In my last blog post I talked about the art of noticing your students. This goes two ways: sometimes we notice commendable things, and sometimes we notice annoying things. We know that we are...

I was a very green first-year teacher when I stumbled upon a helpful assumption about human nature. It seemed to me that neither the students nor the teacher could do our best work when we felt lost in the shuffle. I had three...

Photo by Stefan Steinbauer on Unsplash Imagine with me a walk in the woods or along a path in a state park, carrying a foraging basket. You bend to pick a purple violet, marvel at its velvety petals, sniff its sweet scent, and...

Not a Good Day “The directions say I am supposed to find fourteen adverbs in this story,” she said. “I only found three of them, two not’s and one very .” I was tired of this day and of this conversation, and inwardly I rolled my...

One of the best things about seasons is the excitement as a spent season rolls over into a brand-new one. While we all have favorites, spring is especially exciting with new life popping up everywhere. Who doesn’t feel their...

Photo by Katherine Volkovski on Unsplash Albert Einstein said, “Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.” Clearly, Einstein had a good education; he was considered to be the most...

February school days are their own kind of special. The holiday excitement has worn off, the days are still short and chill, and the school term is barely half-way done, with the second half stretching into the dim future. I...