michaeljarmer

#143: The Silent Note-Writing Game

The Silent Note-Writing Game I don’t know how we landed on the idea. Perhaps chaos of the 9 year old variety inspired me to propose a game in which we must be silent and can only communicate through written notes to each other back and forth on a shared piece of paper or two. He loved it. And in the lastContinue reading “#143: The Silent Note-Writing Game”

#142: This School Year Has Not Been, Thus Far,

On this second day of National Poetry Writing Month, compliments of the prompt for the first day on the http://www.napowrimo.net website, a poem of negation, a poem that describes a thing in terms of what it is not: This School Year Has Not Been, Thus Far, soft and cuddly, a baby blanket; warm and inviting,Continue reading “#142: This School Year Has Not Been, Thus Far,”

#141 Teaching Without A Voice

I begin the cruelest month of National Poetry Writing hopefully recovering from a bout of laryngitis and ready to go back to the classroom. Thus, the inspiration for my first poem of 30, one for every day of the month of April, comes not from a prompt, but from this: Teaching Without A Voice isContinue reading “#141 Teaching Without A Voice”

Embarking Yet Again on Another Forced Creativity Experiment: Year 3 of NAPOWRIMO

Happy National Poetry Month! Beginning on Wednesday, April 1 (this is no April Fool’s joke), I will attempt for the third year in a row to participate in the NaPoWriMo challenge of writing a poem a day for the entire month and publishing each poem here on the blog site. I promise, once again, not to cheat; IContinue reading “Embarking Yet Again on Another Forced Creativity Experiment: Year 3 of NAPOWRIMO”

To Test Or Not To Test

The powers that be, the federal government, the state government, school district superintendents, local school boards and administrators tell us that our students must be tested. Why must they be tested? They tell us our students must be tested so that data in the form of scores and percentages can be published, so that schoolsContinue reading “To Test Or Not To Test”

Notes Toward A Musical Autobiography: Volume II, Letter B

Herein you’ll find volume two of a written record of the experience of attempting to listen to at least one compact disc from every artist represented in my collection. I think I’m crazy and I don’t know how long I can maintain or persist in this folly. I managed in two weeks and aboutContinue reading “Notes Toward A Musical Autobiography: Volume II, Letter B”

Notes Toward A Musical Autobiography: Volume I, Letter A

I have often thought of my record collection, now mostly a compact disc collection, supplemented by the occasional download and maybe 100 vinyl LPs, as a kind of musical autobiography. Listening to records for me has always had the same kind of effect as looking through a photo album, or reading old journal entries. TheContinue reading “Notes Toward A Musical Autobiography: Volume I, Letter A”

Mindfulness in 2015: Day #17

After just now almost putting a pot of hot coffee into the refrigerator, I decide to spend a few minutes reflecting on how my Mindfulness Project for 2015 is coming along. To begin with, I just tried to put a hot pot of coffee into the refrigerator. That did not strike me as being especiallyContinue reading “Mindfulness in 2015: Day #17”

Mindfulness in 2015: A Silver Bullet Resolution

For Christmas this year, we bought our nine year old son the latest kid’s book from Thich Nhat Hanh, Is Nothing Something? Kids’ Questions and Zen Answers about Life, Death, Family, Friendship, and Everything in Between. While the boy has expressed not even a little bit of interest in diving into The Biggest Questions answeredContinue reading “Mindfulness in 2015: A Silver Bullet Resolution”

I Resolve to Resolve for 2015

To resolve or not to resolve: that is the question. In December of the year 2012, I made the following remarks in a blog entry entitled, “Of Resolutions.” It was one of an entire series of entries all taking a cue in their titles from the French essayist Michel de Montaigne, who titled nearly all ofContinue reading “I Resolve to Resolve for 2015”