The Ceaseless Mania for Technology All the Time Everywhere I’ve been out of the classroom for just over two months and I still teach online as an adjunct. I’m certainly not anti-technology; in fact, technological connectivity is what has allowed me to move to a rural area and pursue my dual passions of outdoor recreation … Continue reading First in a Series: Things I Don’t Miss About Teaching
The Crucial Joy of Playing Outside
The day after I called the suicide hotline for the first time, I went skiing for thirteen hours. I’m ok, now. Really. That call was more a request for resources than a life-threatening situation*. But it was definitely a worrisome low point. I’d already been to the emergency room twice in the past six … Continue reading The Crucial Joy of Playing Outside
On Being and Seeming
(Following is the text of a little chapel talk I was asked to give a while back). First, a translation: Esse quam videri means “to be, rather than to seem.” We might also say, “To be rather than to appear to be,” or “value the authentic over the superficial”. It’s a great motto and I … Continue reading On Being and Seeming
Empathy and Time Management
Compelled to watch a time-management TED talk at a meeting recently, I had the opportunity to reflect on the overlap between the speaker’s perspective and some issues I’ve been struggling with in the classroom this autumn, in particular our culture's seemingly diminishing capacity to engage in empathetic understanding and how best to encourage that understanding … Continue reading Empathy and Time Management
Some Thoughts on Charlottesville and the History Teacher
This is just a quick reflection as I prepare for the new school year by thinking about lessons, students, and the rage that would drive a man barely out of his teens to step on a gas pedal with enough deliberate force to kill and wound other humans. It’s difficult to overstate how important it … Continue reading Some Thoughts on Charlottesville and the History Teacher
Listening to Students about Technology
According to the National Association of Independent Schools' Commission on Accreditation, twenty-first century students are qualitatively different from all students before them: I've been considering that assertion for some time, and began to wonder what would happen if we asked students for open-ended feedback about their experiences with technology in school. If, instead of giving … Continue reading Listening to Students about Technology
On Being an Outsider
I was asked to contribute a little talk to a school assembly on the theme of being an outsider, so this is what I said: One late-summer Saturday when I was about twenty-two years old, I found myself standing at the checkout counter of a grocery store in rural Missouri, feeling very suddenly and … Continue reading On Being an Outsider
