PregnancyFamilyEducation Blogs
November 4, 2009
Claiming
Not long ago, on an afternoon off, I took the kids downtown to our natural science museum--one of our favorite places. It's free, and there are tons of neat exhibits to roam around, and some impressive dinosaur skeletons here and there, poised in mid-lunge. When we were in the main dinosaur room I noticed another family there--a woman and man, and their infant son, who must have been about two months old. [more]
October 20, 2009
Talk back
There's a new campus-wide cell phone policy in place at my school effective this academic year. It's nothing earth shatteringly new, only that by making it 100% official we faculty can send a student to the equivalent of the principal's office for being caught more than twice texting in class. [more]
- Tags: Technology, Teaching, Students, Parenting, College Life
September 10, 2009
H1N1-101
Because I don’t have enough to worry about these days lately, I’ve been (finally) pretty worried about the swine flu. [more]
August 11, 2009
Then and now
It was HOT yesterday; 101 degrees hot. It was so hot that when I opened up my car door at 2:30 to head home after a long morning of back-to-school meetings and workshops I thought I would spontaneously combust.
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At one of the breaks during a workshop yesterday I overheard a new colleague talking with her boss. The boss had scheduled a meeting for later that day and the new colleague couldn't make it. She didn't provide a reason, but the boss kept probing.
"Is it an appointment? Can you reschedule?"
June 4, 2009
Fear factor
When I teach freshman composition--which I do all the time, actually, I try and make an effort to assign my students readings that will help them understand and question the world at large. For years I've been giving my students readings from different cultures--whether they are cultures abroad, or cultures within this country, the one we all claim as our own. I try and shake up their perspective, in order to teach them the critical thinking skills I think are most important for success in this world.
May 26, 2009
Duty
I hope your Memorial Day was a little sunnier than ours. We did get lucky in the end, though. After hours of on again and off again sunshine, the rain clouds blew through around 4:00 pm and we ended up with a perfect window of sunshine for the annual potluck at our neighborhood pool. Also on again and off again most of the afternoon I cooked for the potluck (sesame noodles, banana bread, pasta salad) and listened to many remarkable stories on NPR about soldiers from days long ago, and recent days, too. [more]
- Tags: Teaching, Students, Memorial Day, Holidays, Character Sketches
May 12, 2009
The calling
On my way to my car yesterday, feeling grouchy and deflated, and after a full day of two long back-to-back meetings (I love my job, but I wish the powers-that-be would understand that a week of meetings and workshops right after a long and grueling semester is just not going to sit well with most people) I fell into step with an older woman headed to her car. I'd seen her around, and didn't know her, but she started talking with me anyway. She was headed out of state for a job, and to go to night school, after quitting her current job cold turkey and doing an about-face career change. [more]
April 9, 2009
That class
I have learned to appreciate recently that one of the most sensible, truthful, meaningful bits of wisdom out there for me this semester is this: sometimes what doesn't break you will make you stronger. [more]
March 26, 2009
The dream
Yesterday I was standing in the hallway at work, fumbling as usual for the keys to my office and a young woman rounded the corner, a chubby-cheeked baby in her arms. I recognized her immediately as one of the students I taught about a year ago--one of the students from this class. She'd been pregnant then--clearly with the little guy she held in her arms.
"Student S.!" I said in surprise. "So good to see you!" [more]
March 10, 2009
Bag of tricks: The college survival edition
My students are in the throes of midterm exams this week. Whenever I watch my students bent over their papers, I feel a surge of protective, maternal concern for them--even for those students who taxed my patience in the weeks leading up to exam week. But my heart always goes out to them when they're taking tests. They seem more like the children they were (or are?) when they're chewing on their pencil ends, or staring off into space for the answers, or feverishly writing--pouring out all the stored-up knowledge onto paper. [more]
