Essays 1-20

Racquel, a young girl, was upset. She dearly loved her mother, Fran, and also loved her mother’s friend, Judy. She enjoyed spending good time with both, both separately and all three together. But Fran and Judy didn’t always get along well with each other; sometimes they annoyed each other. Even though only Fran was Racquel’s…

The title of this article (“The Accidental Teacher,” for those of you who are reading my column in the newspaper, and so may not get to see the titles) came to me before I had any idea what I was going to write about. Sometimes that happens, and I have to let it happen. I…

I remember hating riding to school on the school bus. I tried to get a seat in the front, near the driver, but so did lots of people, so my odds weren’t very good. So pretty often, I sat in the back. The people who wanted to sit in the back knew that I was…

Sometimes the work of teaching makes it so you can’t see the forest; there are too many trees to think about. As I sat in Pam Szczesny’s third grade classroom this morning, I took a moment to look at the forest. Children were working on writing their own individual creation myths, and they were deeply…

It wasn’t too long ago that we all learned what great people Lincoln, Washington, Columbus, and all those guys were. Teachers taught that these people were heroes, and hinted that we should try to be like them. And since we didn’t have to go to school on the days dedicated to these people, we had…

Last year, Laura, who was eight years old, was at recess, watching children climb to the top of a metal structure. As successful children got to the top, some stayed there for a while and looked around, and some immediately slid down the pole they’d climbed up. Either way, it looked like fun. It was…