by Dawn | May 11, 2015 | parenting, Teaching
I got a Mother’s Day e-card. It was Stewie from Family Guy. “Mommy, mommy, mom, Lois mom, mom…I hope you get some peace, though it’s probably impossible.” Peace and Mother’s Day are diametrically opposed. I let Declan stay up good...
by Dawn | Apr 30, 2015 | Teaching
“How old are you, Miss?” “44.” It’s a fact, not an embarrassment, there’s no reason to hide the number. Besides, any kid with a phone can Google me. “Forty-four?” she said. “I always thought you were in your...
by Dawn | Apr 28, 2015 | Teaching
Mr. Brown was about twenty feet tall. He had to be. He was the wrestling coach. Those were the days when a teacher could lift a kid up, turn him upside down, and shake the excuses out of him and not have anyone bat an eye–the days of the Breakfast Club and...
by Dawn | Apr 8, 2015 | parenting, religion, Teaching
I told Declan the story of the Passover the other night. Too many people separate Judaism and Christianity. I imagine being a Jew in the time of Jesus–Romans, poverty, political turmoil. Being a Jew in the time of Jesus was sort of like being a colonist...
by Dawn | Mar 29, 2015 | education reform, Teaching
Declan gets pennies in a reward jar for not annoying me. He earned enough to get something. He asked for a Rubik’s Cube. I was the last of my friends to get the Rubik’s Cube in the 80’s. I never did learn to solve it. “Here, Mom, solve...
by Dawn | Feb 12, 2015 | social justice, Teaching
I was first generation that never sat at a counter at Woolworth’s. I never burned a bra. I didn’t need a bra but that’s beside the point. I wore mine dutifully with the other flat-chested girls who wouldn’t burn bras because we’d been liberated by our mothers. Girls...
