592. No, Virginia

I went to sleep one night determined that when I woke up, I’d write an article about family planning. I didn’t sleep well that night. I woke up at 1:00 deciding that the concept of family planning required several articles. I woke up again about 2:30 remembering a talk I’d had with a friend who…

One of my neighbors, Luke, who is five years old, just got a new harmonica. He was about to show me the sounds he can already make with it when another neighbor (an adult), who was visiting Luke’s father, asked if he could try it. The man played a few tunes, and impressed us all…

I remember the first time a very young child came to me and started a story with “Mr. Blue, when I was little…” I did manage to keep myself from laughing out loud, but I thoroughly enjoyed hearing that opening line. There I was, over twenty years old, hearing a six year old child reminisce…

When I first started teaching elementary school, a good friend of mine said the best way to teach reading was to give a child books that were interesting. I knew better. I knew that people had developed all kinds of sophisticated techniques to help children break the complicated code that was the English language. My…

Because of some excellent teaching, or at least due to the absence of awful teaching, I became a writer. I almost wrote “compulsive” writer, but that makes it seem like a problem. Let’s see…Perhaps I’ll write “prolific” writer. No. That refers to quantity, but doesn’t convey my passion for writing. I’m sure there’s a word…

There are teachers who absolutely love teaching. There are some who don’t exactly love it, but think it’s okay. And there are some people who wish they could find jobs as teachers, but so far, haven’t been able to. There are many aspects of teaching many teachers consider delightful, and while it does depend somewhat…