I don’t ever remember the school bus being a particularly warm place in the dead of a New England winter. Sure, it was better than walking, but I think we were warmed mostly by our own youthful sense of excitement about going to school or going home. Later, of course, it just wasn’t cool to…
New England
Gooey Gray Mud
If you had told me that walking knee-deep through the gooey gray mud of a tidal basin during a cold New England April would be one of the highlights of my high school years, I might have laughed. Right in your face, in fact. That’s if I had been paying attention. (I was not…
Morning Motivators Book Giveaway
Beds. Every year, some mattress manufacturer comes up with a new way to make our beds more comfortable. We were once encouraged to sleep on mattresses filled with water. Drifting off to sleep took on a whole new meaning. In this, our Information Age, many of us have bought into the idea of sleeping on…
Making Real-World Connections
My students sometimes accused me of torture. If you know me, you know how funny that is. Maybe I did torture my students, but it was justifiable in the war on classroom boredom. It served the greater good of learning! More than a few times, I have mentioned Jack London’s story “To Build a Fire”…
Don’t Know the Reason I Stayed There All Season
Having a classroom on the third floor of an 85-year-old school building in New England in the middle of winter was pure joy. Before students started streaming into the building, I could stand in the silence and look out my classroom windows to watch thin trails of pure white steam rising from rooftops of neighboring…