renée a. schuls-jacobson
The Empty Blue Desk
Fall Semester 2009. Last year. He sat in the back row. In the only blue desk in a room filled with brown…
What My Fingernails Know
When every fingernail on both of my hands has broken, I know it for sure: Summer is over. It happens to me every year over a two to three-day period. It’s a physical thing; parts of me grow brittle and fall off. Long before the leaves ever change to yellow or orange, my body knows: Autumn is in the house….
The Secret To Finding The Best Babysitters
The best babysitters are, of course, the ones who love interacting with your children and know how to take care of them in any circumstance. But now that my son is older, I have found that the best sitters – the one’s who not only take care of his physical and emotional needs – are the ones who like to linger around after my child (and usually my husband) have gone to bed so we can discuss life. And books!…
What Our Actions Teach Our Kids About The Earth
I try to remain optimistic, but I find myself wondering if our efforts are merely an exercise in too little, too late? As thousands of gallons of oil oozed into the Gulf just off the coast of my beloved former home of Louisiana, I found myself thinking about how the more we try to fix things, the more we muck things up….
"Out of The Closet" by Chrissy Teague
What are you holding onto that might benefit someone else? Needs have never been greater. What better time to give than now? You may feel like you don’t have much. I understand. I’m a jobless single mother coming out of two closets. I’ve got nothing to lose and everything to give. I challenge you to do what you can. Our relatives, our friends, our neighbors need us. The quality of community is in our hands. …
Father and Son: Gone Golfing
My husband and my son have been on the driving range for an hour. I know this because I have been spying on them from my car. About twenty minutes ago, it started to rain, and I thought they would stop. But they didn’t. They kept on whacking ‘dem balls, oblivious. I never thought this day would come. …
Office Heroine or Immature Coward?
So apparently this girl quit her job with a (flash) bang by emailing these photos to her entire office, about 20 employees. On the one hand, watching the little display feels wonderful. I mean, it’s positively cathartic! Who hasn’t had one of those bosses? The one’s that make us wish that we could do something like this? I can imagine the air being sucked out of the room as Spencer’s entire life is broadcast (and now re-broadcast and re-broadcast). Maybe the girl is an office heroine? Perhaps she opened the way for some constructive conversation about how things are run in this office….
Pep Talk For New Teachers
1. Don’t take things too personally. You have to know this up front. Your students are going to talk about. If you are lucky, they will say nice things like, “I like Mr. X’s hair,” or “Ms. Q. is kinda cool.” More likely, you will overhear them in the halls: “(Insert your name here) is unfair. Not flexible. Boring. Biased. Unqualified.” Let’s face it. Not every student is going to die for your class. Not every student is going to find the Quadratic equation fascinating. Not every student is going to care about conjugating verbs. They won’t all be interested in Mendelian genetics. Some of them won’t like your unit on Lord of the Flies, or insects, or rain forests. Listen to their comments, glean from them what you will, and then let them go. This is especially true for teachers of older students when you receive your first batch of student evaluations….
A Bridge From Cyber Chaos to the World of Words
I just finished reading another book called The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupifies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future by Mark Bauerlein. And frankly, it caught my attention. And as ironic as this is going to sound coming from an online blogger, I am trying to minimize my screen time. So yes, I will continue to blog, but I write in Word, check my spelling and grammar, find a picture and post. I’m trying not to hang out on Facebook as much, so I’ve got things going there automatically. I’m trying to live a little more unplugged because I truly believe (and now have well researched and documented support, thanks to Bauerlein) that all this screen time is leading us down the path to a place of incivility that breeds incompetence in school and the workplace.
All around me, I see people losing their ability to connect to each other. And, as a teacher and a writer, I want to be that bridge, so I have to work on being that bridge.
Franzen’s interview came at the right time for me — as I continue to write on a manuscript that has been like birthing an elephant. And by that I only mean it is taking a really long time. One day, I would like to hold that book in my hands, and I would like to dream that somewhere, someday, someone might write all over it. Underline. Make stars. Question marks. Pen, “This sounds like me” in the margins.
I want to be a real bridge, though. Starting Wednesday, September 8, 2010, I plan to help my students figure out how to pull their own stories from out of themselves and put them on paper; show them that the conventions of Modern Standard English matter, that an outstanding vocabulary can help them get ahead in the world.
I don’t think it is possible to be a cyber-bridge. You have to really be present to help people make their journey, especially when they are scared. And, believe me, when you ask 18-24 year olds to put away their technology — even for just 50 minutes — they are scared.
So I will gently take their hands and pull them away from their addictions and try — for 15 weeks — to get them to let me be their bridge.
I just hope they don’t walk all over me. Or that they, at least, tread lightly….
Are You Cool With Coed Sleepovers
I have been hearing more and more about kids getting together en masse for coed sleepovers. Some parents have been very positive about these group adventures in nocturnal cohabitation and insist there is little to worry about — the kids are all just friends, no one is drinking or doing drugs or hooking up, that the kids just like to “hang out together” in their jammies; sometimes they even text while sitting next to each other on the couch! For many parents, there’s no discussion about it – coed sleepovers are out of the question. For other parents whose teens who are hosting and attending these boy-girl events, it’s merely a sign of the times, a natural extension of the ever-expanding platonic relationships between the sexes. Some parents are clueless; their child simply tells them he/she is going to sleep at a friend’s house, but the parents never call to check in with the host parents, so they have no idea the event is coed.
How do you feel about group, coed sleepovers; they seem to be the new “cool” thing? Yay or nay? When would you allow your child to have someone of the opposite sex sleep at your house? Could they share a room? A bed?…