Write Like You Mean It

 Preface: I am still doing this Slice of Life March challenge from Two Writing Teachers --despite the fact that this is only my 3rd blog and it's March 7th.  I have decided not to malign myself for not being able to write daily. I think about writing daily, but when my toddler wants me to dance with her to We Don't Talk About Bruno or my teenager wants to ask me a philosophical question about life, I will give them my time. And, I will write when I can. I saw this quote today:  I saw it and had to catch my breath. Stunning, isn't it? It is transformative when you being to discern that, to understand what love really is, we have to understand what it isn't. I liken this to teaching. It took a while, as a teacher, for me to understand what good teaching really was. I had to try lots of things that didn't work first.  Understanding many things in the world requires us to first understand what said thing isn't. The distinction for love, I think, is that, unlike mos

There will come a time  when this world will bathe you in pain. Sometimes, you'll drown  in it Wondering-- if you can remember what air  or hope tastes like. And in the thick heaviness of all that troubles you Somehow, you'll raise your chin out of  the ocean of   blue, black memory and find air and breathe. It is  here In the  calamity of this moment, You will find your north and  rise in beautiful, perfect brokenness.

Full transparency: this started out as a letter-to-the-editor. I contemplated sending it in to the Dallas Morning News. Then, I changed my mind. Then it was going to be an open letter to everyone who wants to ban books in schools . I have since decided to call it a love letter b ecause it springs from the deepest well of my love for education, students, and learning. This letter is full of LOVE. I will not resort to anything less than love. So, here it is... My love letter to the book banners. Banning books in public schools is nothing new. As long as there have been books, there have been those who have wanted to ban them. Yet, something about the current wave of book-bannings feels especially dangerous. And especially terrifying. (Get ready, because I am about to state the obvious.) Students need access to complex, diverse text in public schools. A large body of research demonstrates that equitable access to books promotes reading achievement and motivation (Allington, 2002, 2009; Kr