On the very first days with my sophomores in the new school year, I asked them to write some goals for themselves, things they wanted to learn or accomplish in the new year in English Language Arts. I gave them the spiel that often goals are stupid things because we allow them to slip awayContinue reading “#181: I Am From Jarmers”
Category Archives: Teaching
#180: Another “Workable” Solution
It turns out that the brave colleague who volunteered to teach five preparations in order to relieve another colleague of a student load of 217 did not, after all, have to take on five preparations. Instead, two of her small classes were swapped straight across with two of the other teacher’s giant classes. These movesContinue reading “#180: Another “Workable” Solution”
#179: A “Workable” Solution
Today the English Department got together to figure out how to relieve a colleague of a student load of 217. That’s all I really have to say. The fact alone is enough. One of our colleagues was assigned 217 students. The obvious solution, hiring another teacher, is apparently out of the question. A school is given soContinue reading “#179: A “Workable” Solution”
A Single Dispatch from Writer’s Camp 2015
It’s quiet on campus. Everyone has gone home. It’s just me and Mark, the dorm all to ourselves. He’s here still because he can’t travel on the Sabbath. I’m here to simply take a few deep breaths, to take advantage of some solitude before heading home. I went down to the cafeteria tonight for dinner,Continue reading “A Single Dispatch from Writer’s Camp 2015”
A Talk at the 2015 Rex Putnam High School Graduation Ceremony
Class of 2015: Good morning! Many of you have seen a music video on youtube in which a young man wearing a yellow suit, a blue bow tie, and beige converse high tops, bounces up and down, gestures maniacally, and moves rhythmically in a way that sort of resembles “dancing;” his eye make-up is sweatingContinue reading “A Talk at the 2015 Rex Putnam High School Graduation Ceremony”
#175: Arts and Crafts
We’re studying Romeo and Juliet and even though kids are, for the most part, up on their feet with scripts instead of sitting at their desks reading out loud, it’s a herculean struggle for them to read with any accuracy, enthusiasm, or understanding, and the kid who insists on playing Benvolio every single time alsoContinue reading “#175: Arts and Crafts”
#154: A Dialogue?
Student: This class sucks. It’s boring. All we do in here is read and write and talk. And I have no idea why I’m failing. I can’t find my pencil. Could I borrow a piece of paper? When can we watch a movie? Oh my god, I just got a text and I have toContinue reading “#154: A Dialogue?”
#149: Unspeakable
Unspeakable I’m trying to find words to describe how I feel when, during a reading from Elie Wiesel’s Night, I look up and see students looking at their phones. One student, in particular, looks at me, and without irony, without hesitation, and without, I would say, consciousness, says, as if it were a legitimate explanation, that sheContinue reading “#149: Unspeakable”
#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”
michael jarmer 