It’s the day before a quiz. The kids are reviewing — working on math problems from the last week or so. Here’s the promise: Know how to do these, and you won’t be surprised tomorrow. Two kids in the back are working together. That’s fine. When they are at work in a few years, this is […]
Category Archives: Default
On The Inside
Mon, 28 Dec 2020, 11:33 AM (-06:00)
That day I said something about my father’s childhood. Perhaps the story about counting the cattle when they came back through the gate at the end of the day. After class, a student came up to the desk. He looked at me through the light of the document camera. “I thought you were Hispanic,” he […]
You Ok?
Mon, 28 Dec 2020, 10:27 AM (-06:00)
He had missed a lot of tests while he was remote. Homework, too. Pretty much done nothing for many weeks, and his grades showed it. Now he was working hard to get caught up. He fished around in his backpack and pulled out a few papers: test corrections for a make-up test that he had […]
Möbius Strips
Sun, 27 Dec 2020, 09:49 PM (-06:00)
1. An Activity What was it that day? Maybe there was a planned fire alarm. Or maybe a lot of kids were out testing. Whatever it was, we didn’t have a lesson. We had an activity, instead. In the morning, I had cut strips of blue paper for the in-person students — two inches wide, […]
Fall Semester Finals
Sun, 27 Dec 2020, 06:28 PM (-06:00)
They sat at their desks, some of them socially distanced some not, because we have more in-person students than two-person desks. So some sat shoulder to shoulder. Others of course, were sitting at desks at home, or kitchen tables, or on beds in their rooms … on Zoom. I handed out the bubble sheets and […]
What Do the Lizards Think
Sun, 13 Sep 2020, 04:49 PM (-06:00)
There are lizards in the Turk’s Cap. Geckos scurry in the dry leaves and sticks on the ground below them, chirping in the dark of the night. Spiny Lizards climb the trunk of the Ash tree behind them, blending in with the bark so that you cannot see them unless they move. And Anole’s move […]
Papershell Pecans
Sun, 13 Sep 2020, 04:35 PM (-06:00)
Pete has been here many years. Thirty or more, according to the story he told about scavenging rocks from the creek when they first moved here. The neighborhood would have been young then: the houses, most of the trees. His two Pecan trees would have been young then. Pecan trees that he has cared for […]
The Jeeps and the Pushers
Sat, 1 Aug 2020, 11:08 AM (-06:00)
1. A Jeep Out of Gas When the light turned green, the geezer found himself behind a Jeep SUV that had run out of gas. A twenty-something driver was pushing and steering, trying to get his vehicle thru the intersection. The geezer changed lanes and drove around and then pulled into the next driveway. He […]
Wrens are not Squirrels
Mon, 27 Jul 2020, 12:05 PM (-06:00)
A Carolina Wren sang from the upper branches of the Japanese Persimmon. The song was more warble-y than usual, and I went to the back door to listen and watch, slowly closing the patio door since the heat of the day had arrived. Another Wren in the pond caught my attention. It was splashing in the […]
Wrensong and Rainfall
Sun, 26 Jul 2020, 08:12 AM (-06:00)
“Matamoros is getting it,” Trudy said. Like her mother, she loves watching weather radar. She held out her phone. A bright red band was smeared across the map. It came in from the Gulf and passed inland right over the spot where the map showed Matamoros to be. “Corpus is getting it.” There was another […]