"Teacher Training"

I never thought about how a teacher's training begins the moment one steps into a classroom for the first time. I thought about the "lessons" I've learned from my teachers over the years. Miss Moynihan, my Latin teacher. She made her students stand to recite their conjugations and declensions. If someone made a mistake, they couldn't sit down. I remember some days by the end of the period, everyone -- but Miss Moynihan -- was standing. I learned to push myself in Miss Moynihan's class -- and I learned I could master anything I set my mind on mastering. I learned teachers can push students ... maybe should push students ... set the bar high...Miss Moynihan expected greatness from her students...I suppose some students hated Miss Moynihan and were "crushed" by the rigor of her classroom, but hers was a classroom where I flourished. Of course, I'm not Miss Moynihan, and it's not my style to make students stand to recite, but I do try to have high expectations for my students -- to push them to achieve greatness, the way Miss Moynihan pushed me.

The Things They Carried

The first time I read this book was shortly after it was published and I was still recovering from what had happened during the Viet Nam war. I was so sure our country would never get embroiled in another war like that one, but when the fatalities and atrocities of the Iraq war started to mount -- and the revelations about how our government had lied to us and the world to justify pushing us into the war -- I was reminded of this book -- and I reread it, and have reread it again and again over the last few years. I think of the vets who've been in my classes recently and their stories of the things they've carried home from the Iraq war. And I know Tim O'Brien told the "truth" in this book, and I want to tell him that he succeeded: he did make the dead come alive through his writing. And I won't forget them.

Blogging

Before this semester, I've never had my own blog, but for the past couple of years, I've been reading the blogs of friends of mine who are Peace Corps volunteers in South Africa, and also the blog of a friend volunteering on a kibbutz in Israel where he's been learning how to build self-sustaining ecosystems.

I couldn't believe how easy it was to set up a blog, but I must confess I'm a little ashamed of how plain my blog looks. I'll have to go in a edit the layout, so my blog looks a little jazzier.

I have published several memoirs, and I'm always working on writing memoirs, and reading published memoirs. This sumer I read about 15 memoirs. The best one, The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls, -- and the one I recommend to everyone -- was recommended to me my a former English 192 student of mine.

I look forward to reading and writing memoirs with you this semester.