In the beginning of the school year, I had a health scare that resulted in a week of stress, early mornings, long calls to doctors, and ultimately a last minute seven-hour drive to Wisconsin on a Thursday night to make a Friday morning oncology appointment. My symptoms? Exhaustion, a nagging cough, bruising, and infections that … More A Health Food Journey
Like so many other teachers, I constantly hear curse words and insults flung around in my middle school classroom by students who are testing their boundaries and acting on hormones. This has escalated, I think, since 2015 and 2016 when even the country’s leaders were using rude nicknames, cutting one another off, refusing to listen, … More Classroom Euphemisms: Teaching Civility as a Habit
In Part 1, I introduced the idea of crimeless revocations and how re-incarcerating individuals for breaking the rules of parole or supervision as much as Wisconsin does is costing the state tens of millions of dollars every year. By reserving incarceration for only new crimes, we could use that money for new social workers and … More Long-Term Thinking Part 2: The Parole Board
Green Bay is but a symptom of the larger disease in the Wisconsin Corrections System: short-sighted thinking. A new prison may alleviate the overcrowding temporarily across prisons, but if nothing is done to address the reasons why so many Wisconsinites are imprisoned, the problem will only continue. Across the country, some very surprising states are … More Long-Term Thinking Part 1: Crimeless Revocations
The Wisconsin Corrections System is needlessly short-sighted in proposed solutions to its many problems. Just last Spring, two bills on the state Senate floor energized prison reformists across the state: one that would provide 350 million dollars for a new prison and another that would begin the process of closing the last juvenile detention center … More Promoting Long-Term Thinking in Wisconsin’s Corrections System
Hygge (hoo-gah) is one of the most popular trends on Pinterest, Instagram, and blogs for white women to show off their comfy blankets, pumpkin scented candles, and cakes. Starting around November and moving throughout the winter months, these blogs claim that the secret to living a good life and being happy especially when the sun … More Hygge: Bloggers’ appropriation of Scandinavian tradition (that I absolutely adore)
Some say it’s the most wonderful time of the year. A day that people look forward to for almost 18 months ahead of time. Others say it’s getting too commercialized — taking up our TV, radio, and social media. Wherever you fall on the holiday itself, you have to admit, it’s a day that comes … More Election Day Game Plan
“Yes, ma’am.” “No, ma’am.” “Right away, ma’am.” Every time I have a talk with a student, their immediate reaction is to call me “ma’am.” My internal reaction to that? How dare you talk back to me you sassy snot! But then I remember again that I live in Kentucky now, and not Wisconsin, where kids have been … More A Wisconsin Yankee in Kentucky’s Court
Over the summer, as I listened to Hamilton over and over again in the car, it struck me that so many of our founding fathers were self-taught. They read books by candlelight and devoured their learning. After some study, I saw how many famous, successful people taught themselves almost everything they needed: autodidacts. If you would like … More From Education Week: “What Jimi Hendrix and Leonardo da Vinci Can Teach Us About Personalized Learning”
Middle school students aren’t exactly known for being the most empathic people in the world. Comedians like Bo Burnham and John Mulaney have both specifically called out 8th graders (my students’ grade) for their ability to be mean to one another. I see it in the hallways, in our classrooms, and on their phones every … More Teaching Empathy
Mary M. McConnaha 