Comparing my profession to finding the right pair of running shoes is fraught with all kinds of potential inaccuracies and legitimate criticisms, but the fact remains that education is in trouble because we aren’t listening to the experts, we aren’t helping teachers find the right fit, and we aren’t spending the money where we need to spend it and providing the resources necessary to do the most effective work. And the refusal to do so is pushing teachers out of the classroom at an unsustainable rate and leaving children without education experts with the knowledge and skills to teach them at every level.
Grasping for Control, Again
It hasn’t been an easy transition for our family since making the seemingly sudden decision to move from Texas to […]
How Will We Handle Our Next Crisis?
I’m interested in healing the wounds, a healing that can only happen if we actually learn from the past this time. I really don’t want to fear the next pandemic. I don’t want to fear the next crisis. I want to be able to trust that my fellow citizens will look out for each other and not just their own interests. I want to believe that more of us understand that we are interdependent and that this interdependence makes us stronger, not weaker. I want to believe that we are better than our social media accounts say that we are.
I Don’t Want to Return to Normal
Even those least affected by COVID-19 and the ripple effect of its presence will be forever changed. It is understandable to desire a return to “normal.” It is human to look back on the past with a sense of clouded nostalgia, remembering things as we want to remember them, not as they actually were. But before we jump into a return to the way things were, we should take a moment to imagine the way things could be.
Navigating a Year of Pandemic
I sat in an airport in Costa Rica with a crew of teenagers, preparing to return home to Houston after […]
When COVID Turns Your Life Upside Down
2021 is going to include a lot less airplane travel, time zone changes, extra-large suitcases, or language translation, but I think it will be quite an adventure nonetheless. And if it doesn’t include packing up a home over Facetime or leaving people we care about without so much as a goodbye, I’m ok with a little bit quieter year.