michaeljarmer

Try Again, Fail Again, Fail Better

The following is the prologue for a work in progress about—you guessed it—teaching. It may become a real book some day, I hope, or, at the very least, a series of related blog entries. Prologue Imagine, it’s August, and I am in the last few days, minutes, and moments of what we call in theContinue reading “Try Again, Fail Again, Fail Better”

Hope Springs in Thermals: The Future of Education

We started playing around with malapropisms in class the other day when a student of mine asked me if I found it annoying when people say things like “it’s a doggy dog world.” Mostly, I’m amused rather than annoyed, I said. I understand that if a person has misheard a word or phrase that sheContinue reading “Hope Springs in Thermals: The Future of Education”

Synchronous Mutability: Ch-ch-changes

Inspired by an allusion in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, I recently shared with my juniors in I.B. English two different poems, both titled “Mutability”, one by Percy Shelley and the other by William Wordsworth, and then for fun I played the Bowie song about the same subject: “Changes.” It took them awhile to catch on, evenContinue reading “Synchronous Mutability: Ch-ch-changes”

Inaugural Blog

Here it goes, for better or worse. The impulse strikes and I’ve set up a blog. Whatever for? I’m a writer, first of all, and I suspect that I might have a few things to say about stuff for which I have interest and experience: teaching, writing, reading, playing music, listening to music, and beingContinue reading “Inaugural Blog”