I often write posts listing the questions kids ask me during school presentations, but I don’t always tell you how I answer those questions. Penny Wong-Matzelle has two daughters at Saints Cyril and Methodius Catholic School (SSCM) in Deer Park, N.Y., and this article she wrote for the Deer Park-North Babylon NY Patch about our visit […]
Whitney started every presentation we did on Long Island this week with a whine and a moan. She wasn’t scared of the kids. She wanted to play with them! Who can blame her? The kids were cute, cute, cute, but somehow Whitney managed to settle in and lie down by the time we got to […]
So it’s amazing (or in this case perhaps ridiculous) what people can get used to. Well, it’s amazing what I can get used to — I wouldn’t attribute what I’m about to explain to the entire human race. Since around last Christmas, the “m” key on my built-in laptop keyboard hasn’t worked. For awhile, it […]
No one at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) conference handed me a book contract last week, but I still call my trip with Whitney to Seattle an unqualified success. I didn’t expect AWP to be such a huge conference – over 700 exhibitors, and hundreds and hundreds of sessions. The “overflow” hotel Whitney […]
Warning: This endless winter has me cranky. And I’m particularly cranky lately about the drumbeat of BS about education “reform.” And it is BS. Whether it’s Michelle Rhee and Students First, or what’s her name and Teach for America, charter schools (which in Chicago is just another avenue for political corruption), vouchers, school choice, selective admissions, […]