renée a. schuls-jacobson
Lessons From A Boy In a Skirt
Several years back, on the first day of the semester, a student walked into my classroom. A boy, clearly, a male — wearing a long pink skirt, his hair tied in a low pony-tail. When I read the roster and got to his name, he corrected me and told me that his name was Sophia.
I quickly noted the change.
When I met Sophia, she wanted gender reassignment surgery. She wished for it, but knew it would be a long road. As gender reassignment is an irreversible procedure, two letters of therapy clearance would be required. She explained one therapist (psychologist, psychiatrist, social worker, sexologist) would be required to have a doctoral degree, and one of the two therapists would have to know her for an extended period of time. When I met Sophia, she was simply trying to change the name on her birth certificate and running into all kinds of roadblocks. A ward of the State from age 15, Sophia was living with distant relatives. She had no car, was taking the bus to campus, and had no expendable money for one therapist, let alone two with the kind of credentials that she would need to put her on the path towards gender reassignment….
My Annual Birthday Poem: A Terribly Self-Indulgent, Truly Narcissistic Post
Today is my birthday. I’m um… a year older than I was last year. ;-)…
Biting Off More Than I Can Chew
Whenever I take on a project, where I am in a leadership role, where there are deadlinu couldes, where visible, public failure is possible – I get positively crazed. The desire for perfection makes me hustle to work, work, work – and in striving for perfection, the craziness kicks in. …
Oy Vey: Tips to Non-Jews About Bar & Bat Mitzvah Giving
I received an email from an old friend not too long ago. She sounded kinda panicky:
Renna:
I have been invited to go to a Bat Mitzvah in NYC for a co-worker’s daughter. What do I give? Help!
Jenna 🙂
That Jenna. She brought me right back to October 25, 1979 when I celebrated my own bat mitzvah in Syracuse, New York. …
Are You Proud of Your Sweet Little Bully?
In the all the bullying literature that is out there, there is one piece of the puzzle that hasn’t been particularly well documented, and so I’m putting out there. Guess what? Sometimes parents of bullies are proud that their children are bullies. I have heard parents admit they would rather have their children be the ones “standing up for themselves” than the ones being bullied: that they have actually encouraged their children to get physical first, so that they are never made targets themselves. For me, this is the ugliest, darkest side to parenting….
Cursive as a Font Option?
In the 18th and 19th centuries, cursive was one’s special signature. It distinguished one individual from another. The most elite received special training, and possessing a “fair hand” was considered a desirable trait for both men and women. By the 1960s, a standardized method called D’Nealian Script had been introduced into schools all over the United States, and handwriting became more homogenized. I didn’t know any of this, of course. All I knew was that during “cursive time,” each of us learned to write the same way: on thin, gray paper that consisted of rows of lines: two straight continuous horizontal lines with one dashed line in the middle. We sat with our pencils poised “at the basement” of the line ready to “go all the way up to the attic” or to stop “at the first floor.”…
How Far Would You Go To Protect Your Child
Scenario: You have been notified that your child has been arrested for doing something illegal. Your child has privately admitted to both you and your spouse that he did, in fact, do this thing.
Okay, it’s ethical question moment.
Would you make him accept the consequences, or would you hire the best lawyer you could afford and try to keep him out of trouble? Or is there some kind of middle ground?…
Ninja Princess Needs Tiara
I recently wrote about my thing about Halloween and slutty Halloween costumes. I wasn’t even going to do anything this year. But it’s 2 PM, and the Annual Neighborhood Halloween Parade starts in a few hours. And I have to be something. And it’s cold out. Really cold. So, thinking practically, I started with my ski mask. Add a pink mask, a tutu from ye olde costume bin, and one of Monkey’s old swords.
Poof.
I’m a Ninja Princess.
All I need is a tiara….
The Problem With Mirows
When hubby and I lived in New Orleans, we kind of came to accept that conventional spelling (and even pronunciation) was often up for grabs.
When it came time for us to move North, we hired a few packers to help us with the job. They were nice gentlemen. Plump and slow and toothless, too. But Worker Bee #1 and Worker Bee #2 toiled tirelessly in the June heat to help us prepare for our move, and we appreciated their assistance.
When our moving van arrived in New York State 15 days later (long story as to why it took so long, but let’s just suffice it to say that United Van Lines paid us to move), we eventually came upon one strangely enormous bundle labeled “mirows,” that had us stumped….
My Brain is About To Explode
For real.
It’s happening.
I’m. Having. A. Total. Meltdown.
I’ve been trying to figure out this anti-plagiarism program called turnitin.com, and while the program appears easy enough to use, well, it isn’t working for me. And I seem to have found the ugly truth: apparently no one works at this company. There is no technical support. No phone number provided at which to reach a human. After major investigation, I found a phone number. Elated, I dialed. And then I got that automated voice that tells you to please wait. Please wait. Please. Wait. (I watched an entire DVRed episode of Survivor while the music played in the background.) …