- My struggles with learning Hebrew make me understand the behaviors of my struggling readers more. I think about those students as I carry my near-illiteracy into Jewish spaces this time of year.
- This year’s mythology classes give me the opportunity to dive into the following mythological systems in more depth than in past years: Abenaki, Abrahamic, Egyptian, Greek, Hindu, Japanese, Norse, and Yoruba.
- Teaching AP Literature improves what I get from my personal reading as a reader and writer.
- Even though I feel 23 years old on the inside, my childlike enthusiasm for what I love can’t keep my body from starting peri-menopause as I am about to turn 46. This is making my life decisions seem more real.
- Teaching has shown me that we need to consider the psychological and intellectual impact of the technology that we deem essential to modern life and come up with ways to counter-balance the negative results of that technology.
- Using Pixar shorts and microfiction from Microfiction Monday Magazine to teach literary elements to my mid-level 9th graders seems to be working.
- I think 3/4 of my 50 ninth-grade students are actually reading their independent reading books. When we are all actually reading, I feel pretty peaceful and happy about this feature of my job as an English teacher in a public school.
- I keep thinking about how a few weeks ago, I told a friend that if I found myself in a situation in which I got to teach the following classes, then I would be doing exactly what I wanted to be doing when I had vague fantasies of teaching when I was an undergrad: Humanities, Mythology, AP English Literature & Composition, and Ethics.
- Every time I want to quit doing committee work for my synagogue, I remind myself that I am at an age at which if I want a Jewish community in my area, I am obligated to be involved, even to take a leadership role.
- I think I have finally settled on a pseudonym under which to submit my poems for publication. Every day in my journal, I write about what, if anything, I have done for this person.
Thought-Banshees Howling on Last Sunday Before My 46th Birthday
Published inThe Job of Teaching
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