"All this happened, more or less."

In poetry club today, my colleague shared this spoken word performance to remind students of the ways in which they are lucky. Sometimes we all need a reminder not to sweat the small stuff. Students were encouraged to find inspiration in the poem and write their own. Shout out to Ms. Heffner for finding the inspiring poem and leading the club meeting! Remember to look for inspiration in your surroundings and the people around you, and please share if you find a great poetry performance or written piece! Here is mine, inspired by a line from Rudy Francisco’s poem “Complainers” – I took a line from his poem for my title. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8NVLq2fGLc “I am Still Alive” By Amber Counts I am still alive. I didn’t always think I’d make it, and don’t think my story is the most tragic – others have had it much worse – but things weren’t always easy, and I often dreamed of being somewhere else – sometime else – someone else – but I’

Heirloom By Amber Counts September, 2016 I sit at my grandmother’s vanity, And her eyes stare back at me. Well, not her eyes, exactly – Mine lack that degree of warmth – Her twinkle of wisdom – But the knitted eyebrows are there – Furrows that rise into dramatic peaks When worried about my family Or relax into sophisticated arches When at peace, Over pools of empathic blue. I used to open the drawers And peer inside with the excitement Only a child can muster at the wonders within – Lipstick tubes made of metal from long ago, Dramatically Different Moisturizing Lotion And the trial-size gifts with purchase That accompanied it, Wrinkle creams that were utterly unnecessary On the smoothest, kindest face. Beauty from within belied the years, As youth was always a state of mind. My arms rest on the smooth edge Of the worn, wooden top Where the paint has eroded away Under decades of graceful arms resting there – Arms that

I hesitate to review Transit because I don’t feel that I connected with the book at all. Perhaps this prospect was doomed from the outset. I only read the novel because I felt it would be the responsible thing to do since I’ll be coaching Academic Decathlon, and this is the chosen novel to correlate with the 2016-17 topic of WWII. We never enjoy “assigned” books as much as those we chose for ourselves. The fact that I had recently enjoyed two other novels set during WWII, All the Light We Cannot See and The Nightingale , also served to raise my expectations. The further fact that I have studied WWII fairly extensively and have been so deeply moved by such profound writing 1 and art 2 from the period and its survivors also works against a novel like Transit which I find incredibly dull. If you’ve read Hemingway ( The Sun Also Rises , incidentally, was Academic Decathlon’s choice for WWI) or works by some of his fellow expatriates, you will understand the feelings of restlessnes

This review contains a few spoilers, but not many more than you will find by reading the book's cover. This book is about the journey, and I have not ruined that for you here. When I first finished reading Yaa Gyasi’s debut novel Homegoing , I immediately registered the feeling of frustration that occurs when the story you’re reading isn’t neatly wrapped up with all loose ends resolved. As I often do when I feel this way, I flipped back a couple of pages and read them again to see if I missed something.   On another level, however, I knew that I hadn’t missed a thing. I got what really mattered because, of course, Gyasi engineered it that way. The motifs of fire and water meet on native soil. Light skin and dark are reunited. Two paths that diverged – one through slavery and post-Civil War inequity in America and the other through the tribal tribulations and colonialism of Africa – cross again. However, I wanted a moment when Maame’s descendants, from Effia’s and Esi’s bra

In May, 2016, as I walked around my classroom to listen to the discourse among my students and provide inspiration, clarification, and feedback where necessary, one of my students caught me off guard by asking perhaps the scariest question a teacher can hear: “Can I ask you a personal question?” As a proponent of a strong, safe classroom community, I share a good portion of my personal story with my students so that they feel empowered and safe to share theirs, but I always reserve the right to know when not to share. There are some areas of our lives that are sacred and not up for discussion with students. As such, I responded that she might ask, but I had the right not to answer. I always smile when I say this because, generally, the questions are innocuous, and I end up answering anyway. But not this time. “Who are you voting for for president?” Without hesitation, I answered with one of my mantras: “It is my job to teach you how to think – not what to think.” My stude

Recently, I saw a post about a photographer who traveled the country – specifically, the “rust belt,” in order to capture images of derelict shopping malls. I could not find the original article, but another that contains similar photographs can be found here: https://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/completely-surreal-pictures-of-americas-abandoned-malls?utm_term=.stBvqP3dRD#.yoeQm0lxMn The haunting images stayed with me not just because of the macabre nature of abandoned places but also because of what malls once meant. They were more than mere concentrated areas in which to spend money, although in the 1980s, the focus on shopping and materialism was fairly intense. They were also places to socialize. We met our friends at the mall, made new friends at the mall, people-watched at the mall, had deep conversations at the mall, and through all of this, we learned about ourselves at the mall. Let’s look at some movies from the 1980s-1990s set at least partially at a shopping mall to ga

“If I have learned anything in this long life of mine, it is this: in love we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are.”   I can’t believe it, but shortly after starting this novel, I put it down in favor of reading A Game of Thrones (Book I) . I liked the writing in The Nightingale ; Kristin Hannah turns quite an exquisite phrase, but I guess it just didn’t grab my attention, or it wasn’t the right timing. When I picked it back up, it didn’t take me long to wonder why I had ever been less than intrigued with the novel in the first place. I want to make it clear: I highly recommend this book. Vianne and Isabelle, two sisters who find themselves in the midst of Nazi-occupied France, initially react very differently to the occupation. Isabelle is a rebellious teen who joins the resistance without a second thought. Estranged from her father and alienated from her sister, she uses pure strength of character, determination, and hatred of Nazi ideology and act