Tag: education

  • Job Title: Yes (Other Duties as Assigned)

    There isn’t a single human being on this floating rock hurtling through space who has managed to live life playing only one role. Not one. If you know such a person, please let me know. I’d like to study them. Strictly for academic purposes, of course. Not because I suspect they’re an alien trying very…

  • The Meta Standoff at Calexico High School

    It was high noon at Calexico High. Not the romantic kind of high noon with tumbleweeds rolling past the cafeteria and someone whistling a Morricone soundtrack.  No. This was the modern version. The sun hung over campus like it had a personal grudge. Heat shimmered above the blacktop. The halls were quiet. Somewhere in the…

  • Commencement Season: Tassels, Tears, and One Last Trip to the Snack Bar

    There’s something strange about graduation season. For four years, students spend most of high school counting down to the end of school—talking about summer, freedom, and escaping homework forever. Then suddenly, during the final few weeks, everyone starts walking around campus like they’re in the last ten minutes of a movie. People who normally sprint…

  • The Longest Day – Sanitized, Signed In, and Socially Distanced

    I’ve had long days before. I mean, who hasn’t. Everyone has a horror story or two about work, some more drink worthy than others. A friend and I were recently comparing notes over coffee, as one does when caffeine doubles as a therapist. The conversation inevitably twisted itself around the question: who had the longest…

  • NO SOUP FOR YOU!

    I understand referrals. I really do. Anyone who has spent more than ten minutes in a classroom understands that sometimes a line gets crossed. A kid pushes too far, the lesson derails, and documentation becomes necessary. There are days when a referral isn’t just justified—it’s the only thing standing between order and complete chaos. Teachers…

  • Earned Perspective 

    The calm that comes from having seen enough to know this moment isn’t the whole story. That’s a powerful phrase. Earned Perspective isn’t something you’re handed.It’s something you survive long enough to understand. After decades in classrooms, hallways, press boxes, gym bleachers, faculty meetings, and quiet moments after the bell — that perspective wasn’t taught.…

  • Eight Days and Counting: The Monkeys Found the Wi-Fi Password

    Is there such a thing as over-writing? We’ve all heard the term overeating. Some of us have lived it. No point in lying about it. Just accept it and move on.  There’s over-drinking. Over-exercising. Overworking. Over-seasoning (no one asked for that much paprika, sir). Over-texting — because three question marks in a row is not…

  • To the Beat of the Hallways

    Working at a school—regardless of your position—comes with its own brand of daily adventure.  Teachers plan lessons. Counselors balance emotions. Secretaries manage the pulse of the front office. Custodians keep everything moving behind the scenes.  And no matter how carefully you prepare, there is a predictable unpredictability that comes with working in education. Schedules look…

  • Like Molding Clay, But With Words Instead

    When I first started my blog, I had a very clear vision for it. It was going to be my place to offer observations, rapid reactions to issues in education, and—if I’m being honest—to become one of those people other educators sought out for advice, knowledge, and expertise. I tried. I really did. But it…

  • Too Deep for a Tuesday

    I am not a philosophical person—though I do seem to spend a fair amount of time thinking on a philosophical level, which feels like a technicality philosophers would absolutely argue about. To me, philosophy is food for reflection. It’s universal. Every culture has its own way of wrestling with the same big questions about choice,…

  • The Art of School Discipline

    (Or: Why Your Kid Probably Isn’t a Villain, But Also Isn’t Perfect Either) There’s a part of me that’s always been a storyteller. I’ve spent years watching the chaos of childhood—my own and others’—and turning it into little stories that make sense of the messy, funny, absurd moments of growing up. I like noticing the…

  • The Noise of Learning

    I used to think learning was supposed to be quiet.Neat. Orderly. Predictable. But in my world, it never sounded that way. It sounded like pencil scratches in the margins of a notebook, screws rattling on a garage floor, the click of a camera shutter, the uneven notes of a song I hadn’t yet learned how…

  • Several Hundred Words Later

    We’ve all been there. Not as heroes, not as villains—just as silent witnesses to someone else’s emotional eruption. That strange moment when you realize you’re no longer part of a conversation, but the audience to a performance you never bought tickets for. You don’t interrupt.You don’t argue. You simply stand there, nodding politely, mentally taking…

  • The Algorithm on Main Street

    The Algorithm on Main Street

    In Calexico, stories used to travel slowly. They moved on bicycles and sneakers, through chain-link fences and across dusty backyards. They passed through kitchens where tortillas puffed on comales and radios argued with each other in English and Spanish. By the time a story reached Main Street, it had already changed shape—edited by laughter, softened…

  • Standards, Grades, and Other Things We Pretend We All Agree On

    I sat through an administrator’s “clinic” the other day—one of those gatherings where the coffee is strong, the chairs are unforgiving, and the words learning standards are spoken with near-religious reverence. The agenda was precise. The slides were aligned. Everything, apparently, was measurable. My mind, however, was not. This is usually the part where one…