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The Gift of Silence
What is the gift that children want and cannot give themselves? My third graders are ready with the answer. Silence. This is a secret most children have not yet named for themselves. Silence is a gift...
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Cinderella and the Underground Railroad
This week I announced that we were going on a field trip that did not require signed permission forms. We were going on an imaginary field trip that would require courage, open minds, and a willingness...
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Living the Questions with Children
“Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” -Rainer Maria Rilke “What do you know to be true?” This spacious question...
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What I Know Now
In 1978 (almost 40 years ago), I walked into my very own classroom for the very first time. I felt like I knew everything and nothing all at once. But the truth is (and this is true for all new...
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First Teacher Appreciation
We just celebrated Teacher Appreciation Week at our school. In a shower of hugs, flowers, coffee, chocolate, gift cards, and hand written notes, I couldn’t help but think of my own teachers whom I...
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The Stormy Seas of June
This past month we turned the calendar to a fresh page and entered the stormy seas of June. With the clashing weather patterns of high stakes testing looming, and the happy anticipation of summer...
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In Praise of Summer Reading
I am in West Virginia at a place that has been dear to my family for a long time. The present evokes the past with the familiar: the sound of rain on a tin roof; a rushing stream just outside the...
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At the Heart of Reading
I love… I stood at the blackboard that had been there since the school was built in 1911. Black slate. It was the first day of school and hot sunlight streamed through the large open windows that lined...
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My Life at the Improv
Not too long ago, my mother said, “I can’t see back very far or very well, but the fact that I had four such unique children is proof that I let them raise themselves.” Without trying, she speaks her...
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Flying Without a Net
Trapeze artists fly through the air with the greatest of ease, but not without a net. No one flies without a net, but it can feel like we do. Teachers are high flying acrobats who fly the highest at...
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