Note: Ayanna (not her real name) has been part of my life for more than 20 years, ever since she entered my seventh grade classroom. She’s now a neighbor and friend. We get together for lunch regularly. She has given me permission to share her story to illustrate the central role a caring school and caring teachers can play in students’ lives, particularly in times of crisis. I am...
Like so many Americans, I watched the images of the abandoned streets of Wu Han as if they were as relevant to me as photos of astronauts on the surface of the moon. The stories of people quarantined in their homes, unable to travel, worried about their dwindling supplies of toilet paper, resigned to watch the death toll rise from the Coronavirus were unsettling, but still remote...
One of my favorite moments in the cycle of our lives in the Urban Teacher Education Program at the University of Chicago came during orientation week when we devoted an afternoon to introducing our students to a series of clips from a variety of teacher movies – domestic and foreign, documentary and fiction. The idea was to generate a conversation about how the media portrays teachers and how...
It’s been almost six years since I retired, a retirement in name only. My whole professional life has been lived in and around schools, as a teacher at many different grade levels, a school director and a teacher educator. And my school prowling continues. I’m on the boards of schools and educational organizations; I have volunteered for a mentoring program that helps Chicago students stay on a...
That lovely evocative title is not my creation. It belongs to a book by the eminent psychiatrist Robert Coles, celebrating his 90th birthday this year and, to my mind, insufficiently remembered and celebrated. Coles is one of the most prolific writers of his generation. I often joked that he seemed to write...