Fake apologies, the stuff of cowards, come from a place of deficit. Usually the person doing the apologizing fears some kind of a loss, such as a sports contract, a job or bonus, or some position of privilege. They may even consider the recipients of the apology not an intellectual... Continue reading

I still can’t figure out what the novel has done to deserve banishment from my school district. Maybe it overburdened the other English teachers with its depth and complexity, its characterizations and shifting perspectives. The flashbacks and foreshadows, the genres and vocabulary, the sometimes inverted syntax and literary expressions, certainly... Continue reading

It was the new millennium and my mother's fight with cancer channeled itself to its predictable, unfortunate ending. My child was not yet walking, but he sometimes pulled himself up on a plastic storage tub, yelling and screaming, beating his little fists on the lid for attention while I walked... Continue reading

For the first, and only time in my life, I clicked around on Craigslist and ended up in a new love affair. The object of my affection is a two-year old parrot-like little bird with glossy green, red, and blue feathers, a Conure. I adopted him from a sweet little... Continue reading

The neoliberal approach to education, an approach that bases itself in austerity and cruelty, is rooted in the test and punish cycle. Students are sorted by scores and data, rather than interests and talent. Writing, with its connections to personal style and background knowledge, should never be judged by a... Continue reading

I'd like to ignore the neoliberal industry that now manages test prep, curriculum materials, and software packages. But I find it impossible to look away from the glossy, well packaged and unlimited amount of stuff that basically manages compliance with all of the so-called reform strategies that crept out of... Continue reading

Last night we loaded up the bike, the dogs, and the dog trailer and headed over to Houston for the big Moonlight Ramble. We met up with hundreds of other cyclists at Saint Arnold's Brewery for a costume and bike contest, and then we hit the road at midnight on... Continue reading

I've been working on a paper that examines the effects of standardized testing on secondary students. I'm most interested in essay responses and how they interfere with an expressivist pedagogy. I'm trying to argue that even though an essay prompt might have good intentions, it still caters to what Freire... Continue reading

I'm at an impasse in my research and in my paper, and I think I've just become sick of the battle for public education. I am sick of this battle because in the age of Trump and Devos I am losing hope. Even though teachers and other stakeholders have come... Continue reading

Today I am writing to discuss the dancing mumble jumble of the early beginnings of the classical swing and sway of turbulent female bonding gone tragically wrong. A typical feminist will recognize the innate, positive qualities that exist in another woman and seek to hold that person strongly aloft, high... Continue reading

If you recognize this scene, leave a comment and tell me what you know 😊 It is so much like me to post something and then write about a completely different topic, but this time I’m doing it because I really don’t know much about this picture. I know that... Continue reading

Just when you started to think that your life had become dull and uninteresting to other people, you suddenly realize that you’ve been a long-running target of the weak-minded and categorical. I say weak-minded because even with a solid education the cause of your misery is still oblivious to common... Continue reading

I'm writing today just to reflect on a few things that I find extremely pathetic and boring, the kinds of things that are just tiresome and ridiculous. This is just me having an informal conversation with you. First of all, when someone is qualified to do the work, then he... Continue reading

Like usual, I couldn't be more disturbed about the incompetence going on in Washington. I've been reading this book by Kurt Eichenwald about Enron and why it failed, and so many of the people at the top of that organization had no business working with large sums of money and... Continue reading

The fact that Trump keeps kicking people to the curb that disagree with him makes me think that he's so demented and hard line that he finds even the slightest bit of advice repugnant. If that's true, and by all accounts it is, then our country is in even deeper... Continue reading