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Time Travel
I love teaching for so many reasons, but I get a particular thrill when I hear from a student who I taught long ago. At this point, I have many students who are grown adults with careers and partners and even children of their own. Sometimes my students write me notes or find me on social media, and every once in a while I run into them out in the world. In fact, when I was in labor with Austin ten years ago, I was triaged with another woman who was also in labor. “Ms. Clark?” she asked, using my maiden name from my earliest teaching days, and I turned…
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Four Years Ago
(Below is a letter I wrote my first class of senior-level government students. We lived through the election of 2016 together, and the day afterwards, I had them write letters to themselves that I saved for four years. Last week, I sent them those letters, along with this one. It’s been edited for privacy and brevity.) Almost four years ago, on the day after the election, I looked out at all of you from the front of my classroom and I wasn’t quite sure what to say. We were all surprised at how the election had turned out, and I knew there was a lot of emotion in the air.…
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Teachers, We Hear You
My kids’ online lessons started a week before I began teaching, as we are in different school systems. So I had an entire week to observe their teachers without the distraction of my own students. What I realized was this: parents are listening to everything. As a teacher myself, I don’t fault their teachers for a lot of the mistakes they make because I know I make them myself. (I also didn’t properly set up my breakout rooms and wasted all sorts of class time on the first day. I feel for you, 6th grade teacher!) I can’t imagine trying to teach any children younger than seven and actually keeping…
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How Am I Actually Going to Do This?
I keep getting emails from my school (and the kids’ schools and my other educator friends) about the importance of engagement in distance learning and doing better with emotional connections with students and all of the technological advances I need to know about for my classes. It’s all important. I believe in it all, I do. And I am totally overwhelmed by it. I know that most of my teacher friends are overwhelmed. I know that most parents are overwhelmed. I know that working parents are even more stressed and I know that single parents have it the worst. I know that my situation is not unique, and I know…
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Congrats, Graduates of 2020
Welcome families, friends, teachers, and graduates. To the class of 2020: thank you for inviting me to speak. I’m so lucky to be here. Wait – actually, that was the start of last year’s speech, the one where you picked me to be your faculty speaker. This year, you didn’t pick me, but you didn’t pick anyone else either, since the graduation ceremony itself has been pushed back. We can’t even say for certain that it will happen this year. For the first time in many years, I will not watch a group of seniors – kids I’ve loved throughout their high school careers – walk across the graduation stage…
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How Does This Actually Work?
I re-read the headline three times before I could really process it. “DC students could be in classrooms just 1 or 2 days per week this fall.” I knew this could be coming. I mean, of course there has to be a plan for alternative schooling for next school year. But, um, how does this actually work? Here’s the thing: under this possible plan, DC public school kids would only go to school a few days a week but would continue to learn online the other days. And if I’m following this logic right, that means that teachers would teach in the classroom five days a week and also teach…
There’s No Handbook for How to Do This
