Posts under ‘emotions’

Driving home from school today, I waited at an interminable red light tapping my fingers and half-listening to Scott Simon interviewing some expert about some new type of robot-armed eco soda machine of the future. Blah blah blah blah. I knew it was important, something about fluorocarbons and the ozone layer and blah blah blah [...]

Not just a couple of weeks, but a couple of months.  I needed to get FAR away from the wild things, and I did.   I roamed all over.
But now tomorrow’s the first day of the new year, and today was wrap-up of last year.
We got our scores today, both last year’s class’s results and this [...]

Really I am ready for the school year to end.  As are the kids.  Just had to say it.  More later.

This week I had the chance to observe a fellow teacher.  It wasn’t pretty.
Her classroom was being run by 6 boys who did what they pleased when they pleased.  They giggled, cracked jokes, were sarcastic,  played with balloons and stickers, ignored instructions, roamed around the room, called out.
I don’t think it was their fault.
It was [...]

Do you know those moments when suddenly a different path opens up before you?  There you are, doing something that’s second nature, talking to your child or colleague or spouse or friend, in the comfortable, well-worn groove of a conversation whose basic path you’ve walked a hundred times before and you’ll walk a hundred [...]

I had to do it again today.  Call the Department of Child and Family Services to report a parent.
This one haunts me for different reasons than the last one: last week, I knew the mother intended well but just needed some parenting help; today I know the mother intends bad.
This mother instructed her seven-year-old child, [...]

This week I had to make the phone call all teachers dread.  To the Department of Children and Family Services.  The supreme form of tattling.
Kelly walked at the front of the line holding a water bottle with ice in it.  The last time Kelly was carrying a water bottle with ice in it, she’d brought [...]

As a mom, I walk up the path to the school with hope and trepidation.  Probably more of the former.  As a teacher, ditto.  I think this is a good thing: when teachers and parents have similar feelings and expectations.
Tonight we finally had our Back-To-School Night. 7 weeks into the school year.  Why so late, [...]

It’s the weekend. The Wild Things are roaring their terrible roars at home and not in my ears. In the silence I find myself thinking about José.
José who’s always playing with his erasers. Who sits as far away from me as possible. Who likes to be last in line and alone [...]

We’re such creatures of habit. What worked before is what we gravitate towards, instinctually, it seems. Why does it take so much effort to approach things anew? And when are we willing to try?
My kids from the last two years were abstract thinkers. They loved symbolic manipulation. For most of them, [...]