#silentsunday
Yearly Archives: 2024
Student Work
Fri, 29 Mar 2024, 09:20 AM (-06:00)
Arly is a good artist. She comes into the room with amazing work. She usually works with a blue pen, drawing cross-hatch sketches of eyes and faces and renditions of people that any of us would frame and put on the wall. She keeps them in a notebook. “Will you draw me one some day?” […]
Take a Break
Fri, 29 Mar 2024, 09:01 AM (-06:00)
“Mister,” she asked. “Can I go to the bathroom?” “Sure,” I said. “Sign out. I’ll write you a pass.” The students were working on a radical expressions worksheet that day. The room was quiet (which means that this wasn’t third period — the bane of my schedule this year). When she knocked at the door […]
Doubly Old
Thu, 28 Mar 2024, 02:09 PM (-06:00)
“Mister,” she asked after she finished the test. “Can I use your charger?” When they ask this, I say to hook their phones to the cable that’s plugged into my laptop. The unspoken implication is that they have to leave their phones on my desk — far from where they sit. After they squirm for […]
Flight School
Wed, 20 Mar 2024, 12:08 PM (-06:00)
She used to be a student of mine. She struggled with the class. A few times she came in for tutorials, but the amount of material she hoped to make up was just too much. She had a really hard time. Still, every day she would smile when she came in. But it must have […]
First Day Back
Mon, 18 Mar 2024, 08:50 AM (-06:00)
First day after Spring Break. They have a test on Wednesday, so they’re reviewing today and tomorrow. The room is quiet with a murmur of some of them working together, leaning over the worksheet, sharing the Desmos graphs of the functions they’re studying. There’s a picture of our campsite at Ratcliff Lake in the Davy […]
Spiderwort
Sat, 16 Mar 2024, 09:03 AM (-06:00)
Years ago the fair and industrious Trudy gave me a Giant Spiderwort on my birthday. “How long ago was that?” I periodically ask her. “Oh. I don’t know, a long time ago,” she says, drawing out the word long. We find ourselves reflecting on time this way frequently. Fugit irreparabile tempus. In March each year, […]
A Near Miss
Fri, 8 Mar 2024, 11:14 AM (-06:00)
First period on Friday before Spring Break. As usual students are trickling in late. I mean what’s going on that the same kids are so consistently this late — for a math class even. I know, I know. Teenage brains. Early in the morning. I’ve was there once. But every day? Francis gets up from […]