I want my students to believe that it's good to fall in love with fictional people.  But I may be wrong.

My English course for Child Studies majors is called "A Question of Character."  We've spent the last few weeks discussing  what "characterization" means in literature, and what… Read full post »

Just a few days ago, I spent an evening weeping with joy over the documentary Being Elmo. The subject of that documentary, Kevin Clash, is now facing accusations of "sex with an underage boy." No matter what the truth of the story is, it will be disheartening. Which… Read full post »

If it did, I'd have a lot more than I used to, because I didn't use to own any trees, and now I own six. Well, three trees, and two lilac bushes, and a cedar shrub. Nevertheless, money doesn't grow on any of them.

I have gone through periods… Read full post »

You can do things you don't think you can do.

For most of my adult life, I said that I didn't want to own a house. It was too much responsibility. I was willing to "pay someone else's mortgage," as people kept describing it, if it meant that someone… Read full post »

Until now, I haven't commented on the madness happening in Montreal streets concerning tuition hikes.  I haven't commented because my feelings about the tuition hikes, and the resulting student strikes and protes/… Read full post »

If you haven't yet discovered Tavi Gevinson and her webzine Rookie, it's time you did. If you know any teenage girls, you need to send them a link to Rookie, because every teenage girl needs to think about the stuff Tavi Gevison and her writers think about.

In her original… Read full post »

The Husband and I are moving soon.  The other night, we invited a mover over to give us a quote.  He looked around and said, "It's going to cost you a fortune.  You have too many books."

I know what some of you are thinking.  Never!  Sacrilege!  No such thing! &nb… Read full post »

What do your students call you? Would you rather they called you something else?

A couple of years ago, a reader named "Viceroy" left this baffling comment on a post that had nothing to do with his observation.

I notice that your students, who appear to be 17 & 18

… Read full post »

The Husband and I have just finalized a deal to purchase a house. (To read about one of the more dramatic adventures of our search, go here.) In the process, we've had to do all sorts of things that we've never had to do before. We didn't… Read full post »

Are you burnt out?  Or are you demoralized?

A colleague passed this on to me yesterday, and it fits nicely with my series on teacher burnout that wrapped up last week:  sometimes what we call burnout is actually demoralization. The difference is in the cause.

I have been… Read full post »

Is it possible for a bad person to be a good teacher?

The Husband and I have been on an adventure.  We have been looking for a condo for the last couple of months - mortgage pre-approvals! Real estate agents! Notaries and house inspectors! We feel like grownups - and two… Read full post »

This is the final post in a series on how to overcome burnout and love teaching again.   See the end of this post for previous entries.

In the summer of 2007, my burnout reached its peak.  I’d taken some steps to deal with it (and you can check out the… Read full post »

This is the seventh post in a series on how to overcome burnout and love teaching again. See the end of this post for previous entries.

I have a confession to make. I’m a bad meditator.

Meditation is incredibly boring. Everything in me resists doing it, and… Read full post »

This is the sixth post in a series on how to overcome burnout and love teaching again. See the end of this post for previous entries.

One advantage of being a teacher is that it’s easy to keep learning, and learning, and learning.

I got my education degree years… Read full post »

This is the fifth post in a series on how to overcome burnout and love teaching again. See the end of this post for previous entries.

When I first started teaching, I was scared. Terrified, in fact.

I’d taken a job as a Second Language Monitor – a… Read full post »

This is the fourth post in a series on how to overcome burnout and love teaching again. See the end of this post for previous entries.

Teaching can be lonely. We spend a lot of time with our students, but our relationships with them can feel adversarial and/or… Read full post »

One of my favourite quotes about burnout is from Bertrand Russell’s essay “Education and Discipline”:

… it is utterly impossible for over-worked teachers to preserve an instinctive liking for children; they are bound to come to feel towards them as the proverbial conf

… Read full post »

This is the second post in a series on how to overcome burnout and love teaching again. For the introductory post, go here.

On Monday, I introduced my career crisis. After teaching joyfully for many years, I was tired, discouraged and ready to quit.

But I paused before throwing… Read full post »

A few years ago, I was ready to quit my teaching job. But I didn’t.

I’ve been a teacher in some capacity for twenty-three years. I fell in love with the profession when I was a college student and landed a part-time job as an assistant language teacher in… Read full post »

Dear readers:

I've received some comments and missives recently from discouraged teachers who have stumbled upon my blog and have found it helpful. This makes me very happy. However, there's a place I want to send them, and I can't. So I'm going to try to fix this… Read full post »

This week, I am working on essay structure with my post-intro students. After 22 years of teaching essay structure in various forms, I am, as you can imagine, sick of it. But then I came across this little analogy: how to bake your essay like a cake! It's… Read full post »

On Monday, I brought you the story of Penny, who failed my course last term and is repeating it, and has transformed from a diligent and cheery student into a discouraged and sullen one. There were lots of thoughtful suggestions about how to help Penny, and several people asked to… Read full post »

Penny was in one of my courses last semester. She failed. Her basic skills - reading comprehension, written and oral expression, logical organization - were all very poor. However, she was motivated and hardworking, and didn't seem discouraged throughout most of the term, even when she fail… Read full post »

It is only a week and a half into the semester, and already my office mate and I are talking about plagiarism. There are hangovers from last semester - cases that never quite got resolved - and our college has a new plagiarism policy that requires, among other things, that/…

Read full post »

On Monday, I posted about M, a student in one of my courses who was blaming her previous teacher for her course failure and asking to be promoted to the next level. As anticipated, I and the placement coordinator met with her on Thursday to get a clearer understanding of/…

Read full post »