I love teaching.  I think I was born to teach.  I have been in education for 45 years, and I can’t seem to think of a day when I won’t be teaching.  Even if I no longer work at a school, I know I will find a way to teach, a way to connect with children.  Connection is equivalent to teaching for me.  Yes, I care about reading and writing and all the components of a well-read education, but foremost I care about the relationships I developed with children so that they can be open to possibility.  Being open to possibility is the key to life-long learning, and life-l ..read more

My work as a learning support coordinator gives me the opportunity to encourage both struggling and gifted readers and writers.  The arc of my work keeps me on my toes and makes me reflect on what moves I can make to push my students forward.  What arrows or breadcrumbs am I laying down?  The first thing I do when working with students is to listen to them and give them space for them to tell me who they are. As Parker Palmer says, “Teaching is a daily exercise in vulnerability.”  Sharing my struggles and successes with students help them to take a risk and share what is ea ..read more

I am not the kind who promotes herself. I am the kind who hides in the shadows, on the perimeter. I’ve been that way all my life. However, when I was little, I had this desire to entertain people and make them laugh. I would come out from behind the curtains onto my living room stage with my parents and older sister in the audience. They would laugh and clap. I liked performing but I was shy in front of strangers. In middle school, I was chosen to be in the school play, I knew all my lines, and when I got on stage, I had classic stage fright. I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t repeat the lines my fr ..read more

The Wonder Studio got a facelift last month, or should I say a floor lift?  The old floor needed to be repaired, and in the process of fixing a sagging portion, they decided to give us new dark gray flooring, which is washable.  Then, we said good-bye to the old rough wood flooring splattered with paint covered by two dusty, faded rugs.  With the new flooring down, the old tables and shelving looked out of place. I found some pre-owned matching tables in storage and rearranged the space for maximum crafting.  The area that had been sagging was more usable art space.  I ..read more

I love March and April because they signal the beginning of spring. All around us are signs of rebirth: budding trees, unfurling blossoms, birds gathering in song on still bare branches. Every spring, I celebrated the accomplishments of women with our 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students. I gave them a packets of ten women in history to research and then they would select another woman of the choice. I describe our process here. I did this for ten years and then decided to stop because of time constraints and teacher interest. This year was going to be the first year without a Women’s History Cha ..read more

March brought me discipline and audience.  I joined the TWT Slice of Life Challenge, which asked writers to write about a slice of life every day in March. That is 31 posts.  March means a shortened school life since our spring break takes up 14 days.  The time I was in school, and slicing was easy, because I thrive best with structure.  I am very good turning in things on time, doing what I am supposed to do, following the rules. The rest of the days were travel days.  My husband and I took a road trip south to escape cold, wet, gray New Jersey.  Those days it wa ..read more

Every spring for the last ten years, I’ve offered a Women’s History Challenge to 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders at my school, which is the oldest girls school in New Jersey. The Women’s History Challenge was a research project that required students to read and write about ten different featured women plus one woman of the student’s choice. The girls had six weeks to complete the project independently, and then we celebrated by having a tea party and participating in a quiz show. I wrote about the 2021 Challenge here. I intended last year to be my final year since the colleague who facilitated the ..read more

This week, I participated in Ethical ELA’s 5-day Open Write and was inspired by Amber Harrison’s prompt – Fill in the Blanks.  This prompt was based on Walt Whitman’s poem, “Song of Myself.” Amber tasked us with writing a poem celebrating someone or something.  Since this week also marks what would have been her 102nd  birthday, I wrote a poem to celebrate my mother, Vivian Victoria – a talented and creative seamstress, and later an inspiring elementary school teacher.  When I try to conjure up my mother’s sweet face, the first thing that comes to mind is her bright red lip ..read more

 I was heartened to read this week that being an older woman is now trendy.  I am finally in style! No longer invisible, female baby boomers are coming into their own. They are working, creating, and speaking their minds. This was conveyed to me in the Wall Street Journal article, “Are Fashion Brands Finally Catering to Women Over 50?” by Faran Krentcil.  This small, important stance gives me hope.  I still have many productive years ahead of me.  I can continue to teach, write, have opinions. Besides learning about the many mature women in the fashion industry who are ..read more

This week, I’m thinking a lot about love.  First, because it’s February, and Valentine’s Day leads us all to think a little more deeply about love, but also because February has a special meaning to me.  My beloved Grandpa Charlie was born on February 9th,  my husband and I were married on February 10th, and my mother was born on February 25th.  Mom died ten years ago and would have been 102 this year.  Though both my grandfather and mother are no longer with me, their love remains.  Their love keeps me going.  There isn’t a day that goes by in which I don’t ..read more