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Showing posts from February, 2016

On Getting Accepted to Grad School.. Again

So I was accepted to graduate school. Again. Earlier this academic year, I'd looked into some doctoral programs. The idea really excited me, but being the mom of two teenagers is an expensive proposition - especially on an educator's salary. So I figured I'd scale back. That dream can wait a little longer... I finished my Masters' when my youngest was one. He' about to turn 15, so that was a while ago. And now I shall get another one. Yes, I learn all day. Yes, I actively seek new knowledge from colleagues, students, parents, mentors, conferences and Twitter. I read all the time. Ask questions. Wonder. Ponder. Think. It's a good life. But I would be lying if the schoolgirl within - who always dreamed of being a teacher and loved being a student - isn't jumping up and down today. She knows the value of being in class, of asking questions, stretching her thinking and muscling through required readings. It was for her that I decided to do this. And so

I Have Something to Say

My oldest son is on the autism spectrum. For the first several years of his life, he had no language. We communicated through signs, pictures, pointing, crying and codes. It was hard and there was a lot of guessing on my part. But as frustrating as it was for me, I am certain that it was torture for him. He had something to say - always - and no opportunity to say it. This post, however, is not about my family's journey through the delights of autism. Whether or not we are verbal or non-verbal, we all have something to say. Sometimes our somethings are funny. Sometimes they communicate need. Often, we have something to say that lets other know what and how we are thinking. Having watched my boy struggle to say his somethings has taught me the value of voice. Whether our something is insightful, ridiculous, mundane or meaningful, we all must have the opportunity to say it. Last night, I was at a parent meeting hosted by the school district that my younger son attends. It was ver

Intuition or Unconscious Bias?

About 18 months ago I overheard an idea at a work event. Without going into the gory details of the comment, the idea surrounded the sustainability of the school at which I was working. I found the idea terribly uncomfortable and couldn't wrap my head around it. My intuition led me to believe that the speaker's slant or bias was coloring her comments. Unsure of how to process this info, I consulted with some folks - our head of school, a donor, some colleagues and a few students (disguising the idea as a hypothetical situation, of course). I received a variety of different ideas and opinions, but was still fairly stuck in my own thinking. Despite what I gleaned from others, I was pretty sure this idea was a bad one. Recently, I had a reversal in my thinking. In the process of changing my mind, I realized something important: Even though I was going through the motions of evaluating the idea, I was clinging dearly to my own opinion. Call it arrogance, stubbornness, close-min