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Things I’m Still Learning About Race

April 2, 2012

When I was in junior high our show choir was very good. As soon as I saw them perform for us when I was a 5th grader I knew that was a group I wanted to join when I got in 7th grade. We took lots of trips around the Midwest and one time we [...]

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Trayvon On The Playground

March 28, 2012

I stayed late at work tonight because The Cuban wanted to visit the Presidential Library while I was at work and it’s really close to my job. He spent the afternoon with the Director of Library Services, Kathryn Harris, researching more about Eva Carroll Monroe, the woman who started the Lincoln Colored Home. He parked [...]

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Lincoln Colored Home

March 26, 2012

Several years ago I interviewed a teacher for a position. I was sitting on a committee of several people who took turns asking questions (as is the norm) and she interviewed very well. Laura answered the standard interview queries and then it came time to ask her about her outside interests. Normally, we ask about [...]

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I Saw Trayvon Today

March 22, 2012

So, this morning Trayvon walked into my office. Do you have that money? For the chocolates for my fundraiser. I sat in Trayvon’s IEP meeting. We wrote accommodations for him in the classroom so he can learn. I sat with him as he did his artwork at the detention table in the lunchroom. Trayvon sent [...]

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An Open Letter To Racists I Know

March 17, 2012

You know who you are. Whether or not you read these words I am getting it out of my system. I taught your son. I keep thinking about that. In fact, I taught him in a looped Reading classroom for three years. That’s a long time to get to know students and their families, but [...]

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Seventeen on Pi Day

March 14, 2012

I find it impossible to let a birthday for one of my children to go by without some mention. Even if they don’t read my blog anymore or if they just search it for their names (ahem! Mallory!) or to see what it is I’m saying about them. It’s become such a tradition to write [...]

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Keeping With the Inspired Theme

March 12, 2012

It didn’t take me long to decide to become a teacher, and it took even less time to decide what kind of teacher I wanted to be. Now that I have left the classroom I make time to reflect on my time as a full-time teacher and what drove me into the profession in the [...]

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Leaping and Not Looking Back

February 29, 2012

It’s Leap Day and that means something special around here if only because it made me reflect on how I’ve been given an extra day this year. It also means that I reflected on something on which I took a great leap. I still wear the necklace I was given when I went to the [...]

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Family Updates and Whatnot

February 27, 2012

Hi there, neglected blogging space. I owe you an apology. Except that it will sound more like a string of excuses of being busy and one-up-manship that will just make you feel terrible about yourself. No one wants that. The best way to begin again is simply to begin. How about a list? That usually [...]

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Motherhood 2.0

February 12, 2012

For as long as I’ve parented (lo these nearly 26 years) I have come to expect the unexpected. My mainstay is constant communication, total honesty, and mutual respect. Children are far more resilient in the arena of respect than many adults think. They want it and crave it and ache to have it, but it’s [...]

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