Parenting
Well, We Almost Made It Through Without Incident
On the last afternoon of my son’s spring vacation, right when his annoyance at me had reached its apex and his blood sugar had bottomed out, I suggested that it might be a good time for him to get a jump start on his next book report. The one that isn’t due until mid- May.
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What the "Huck"?
I caught this bit on Huckleberry Finn and “The N-word” debate on 60 Minutes and I about 7 minutes in, I just knew that this report was saying it better than I ever could….
Lessons From An Only Child & Three Dead Fish
While much work has been done to debunk the myth of the weirdo only child, most people still think one is the loneliest number. And, shockingly, strangers continue to ask me, over 10 years after my son was born, when I plan to have another. As if having just one is the worst, most unthinkable thing I could ever do….
Lessons From 6th Grade Health Class
The other day Monkey came home wanting to know how old I was when I learned about HIV/AIDS. …
Lessons on Slowing Down
People often ask me, as a person who has spent nearly twenty years in the classroom, what I think about AP classes. Should their child take this AP or that AP? And they are often surprised by my my response that nobody gives a shit about AP classes. Really….
Lessons on Gray Hair & Karma
It all started when I found a gray hair in my ski helmet….
Lessons From Losing
As a self-admitted, ridiculously competitive parent who wants her child to know how good it can feel to work hard and win, it is my duty to report that my son competed in a fencing competition last weekend….
The Giver: Thirteen Years Later
It’s happening. My son is currently reading the first piece of literature that I ever taught. He is reading Lois Lowry’s The Giver, the story of a young boy named Jonas living in a highly controlled community some time in the future. The novel fits into a larger genre of cautionary tales called “dystopian literature.” If a utopia is a society in which everything is perfect, a dystopia is the opposite: everything has gone wrong. But my son doesn’t get this. Yet….
A Word On Grades
Back when I was in graduate school, we learned that C meant “Average” — and guess what? Most students are average. (Not your kids, of course. Your kids are gifted and talented.)…
If My Kid Writes One More Book Report…
I get it. My school district clearly wants our kids to pass the standardized test.
They want a slice of the pie.
But our kids are dying of boredom….