Seed Catalogs

Teachers head back to school tomorrow. Because we're on a trimester system, the summers feel especially short to me. Ok, they might also feel that way because I tend to pack them full of work and travel. The week and a half before students return is always a challenging time for me. One of the …

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That Time of Year

Teachers return to school in a week, and for me, a week out is usually the point in the summer when the panic hits. I've still got some summer work to finish up, and then there's the small matter of getting ready to teach new preps. Rather than cave to the pressure to write a …

Promises and Pitfalls

Students in our history classes are working on creating exhibits for the Museum of World Cultures, which we hold on the last day of school. Each section will take one of the cultures we've studied and create a theme room with exhibits designed to teach visitors (parents, siblings, friends, teachers, and administrators) about the culture. We've …

The Gift of Time

A colleague and I sat in a room with no outside light, affectionately known as the fishbowl, for several days this summer. While this may sound like torture akin to the rubber room, it was actually quite a gift. Because we had the gift of time to plan, we had the freedom to spend 30 minutes …