One of the challenges of teaching is negotiating students with severe psychological conditions — of which we teachers are sometimes informed, but never trained for. Sometimes these students are disruptive (as in the case of a student with Asperger’s who offended and alienated other students with her socially awkward comments) but often they just suffer quietly, withdrawn and/or mysteriously ...

Last night I attended a meeting of fiery radicals intent on reforming society at the most basic level: moms at my daughter’s elementary school who want healthier school lunches. (Interestingly, no fathers attended, although there was one precocious 12-year old young man.) We met for the reason many parents are meeting around the country: we are appalled at what our children are fed at school. ...

I called in sick today for the first time in 18 years of teaching (not counting when I had emergency surgery). If I had an exam scheduled, or student reports, I would have crawled in to work, no matter how crappy I was feeling. As an academic with a relatively flexible schedule, I’ve always tried to get sick on my non-teaching days, or on holidays. But as I sat at my desk grading papers at a ...

We received our fall semester course evaluations on the first day of the spring semester. The timing seems akin to going to therapy with your ex-boyfriend immediately before setting out on a blind date with a potential new one. A strange analogy, but you get my point. One of the things I love most about academic life is the promise of a fresh start. I spend a lot of time tweaking and analyzing ...

Monday our semester begins and I’m struck once again by how fortunate I am to begin again, to start over. How many professions offer the chance to start fresh twice a year? Unlike most years, I haven’t spent my whole break obsessively planning my courses. I’m trying to focus more on my own scholarship and writing, so I decided not to start working on my syllabi until the weekend before. In ...

This week, after much discussion and soul-searching, my husband quit his job. A stoical guy who has worked full-time since he was 17, my husband needed lots of persuading to believe that his happiness is more important to our family than a paycheck. While he intends to begin his own photography business, he will also take over more of the household and parenting duties, giving me more time to ...

We woke up this morning to a world caked in white — big draping sheets of snow hanging from our garage, soft blankets of white where our lawn furniture used to sit, and large puffy flakes falling down. My five-year old daughter’s eyes were wide with amazement, even though she’s seen snow before. I too feel that every year it’s a miracle, a revelation how quickly the landscape can ...

At this point in the semester, my students – who once seemed an amorphous blob of Kaylas, Kyras, and Karas — have emerged as distinct, complicated, and often intriguing personalities. As always, the courses I’ve carefully planned on paper fail to take into account the living, breathing people who comprise them. And while I challenge myself to design courses that engage and inspire every ...

Halloween has never been my favorite holiday, despite my love of chocolate. As a reserved introvert I’ve always dreaded costume parties. It’s taken me years to grow comfortable with my everyday costume, my carefully constructed persona. But now that I’m the mother of an exuberant extrovert, I’m learning to put my dignity aside and get into the spirit. My daughter doesn’t have school ...

In the last couple of months, my husband and I were both “furloughed”: we were each informed by our respective employers that we had to take 5 (in his case) and 8 (in my case) unpaid days off. Of course, like many Americans, we smarted at this financial blow. But we also thought heck, it’s better than being laid off entirely, or watching our co-workers get laid off. However, there was one ...