Full confession: I don’t always read every page of the novel I’m reading. Sometimes I flip to the final chapter. Or I’ll skim through a list of names in a mystery novel to see who’s still alive by page 150. (If my favorite character vanishes, I start slowly backing away – emotionally…

I first became interested in teaching small children how to write during my undergraduate work as I trained to be an elementary teacher. In the 1980s, the teaching of writing was shifting in a new direction. Influenced by educators like Donald Graves and Lucy Calkins, the focus moved away from rigid rules, drills, and worksheets and toward a child-centered approach.

I can still see my boys, one under each arm, squirming to get a better look at Frog and Toad – for the 87th time. One had peanut butter stuck to his cheek, the other had his toes wedged under my leg like he was strapping in for a rollercoaster. They knew every word by heart…

We all love having choices. Cow’s milk or oat? Streaming or cable? Stay in or go out? We want to be the deciders. Masters of our destiny. Queens of our calendars. But what I didn’t know I didn’t know was that sometimes – sometimes – having fewer choices can actually bring…

You know, aging is a funny thing. Not ha-ha funny, but more like, “Wait, what just happened? I could’ve sworn I was still 35,” funny. And somewhere between strapping my kids into car seats and getting my AARP card, I realized something peculiar: The world is slowly, quietly…

As I approach my 60th birthday, I find myself feeling a bit clueless after retiring from teaching elementary school for more than 30 years. I look at young people with a mix of fright and disdain, wondering how they can be so confident in their youth…

After nearly four decades of teaching elementary school, I’ve come to realize that I am, proudly and undeniably, the tip of the iceberg. I know just enough about just about everything to be helpful, mildly impressive, and occasionally dangerous. I’ve taught geology, biology…

I have a deep, unshakable affection for the movie Serendipity. Yes, the one with John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale in cashmere and cosmic confusion. Go watch it now. I’ll wait. Okay… isn’t it predictable and sappy, but irresistible? Bonus points if you tell me you watched…

Hello readers. Welcome to my third installment investigating my ongoing battle with Valulosis (patent pending), the affliction that makes us cling to things because they might be valuable someday.
First, there was my dad, who refused to part with his…

I recently listened to a podcast about the Beanie Baby craze of the 1990s, and it triggered a memory so bizarre, it’s part of an urban legend – except it happened to me. In the mid-90s, I was a third-grade teacher with a classroom full of kids and, naturally, a collection…