Have you ever had this experience in a work context? You’re loving, you’re enthusiastic, you’re positive and eager to help. In response, you are dismissed as a puppy, as a child, as toothless. You are subjected to condescension and disregard. Only when this becomes impossible to ignore do you reveal your incisors, and then [...]
WELCOME, my friends, to the fourth week of our April Poetry Celebration! This week, we go deeper into our theme of CONNECTION with a gorgeous feast of poems from our community, inspiration to participate in poetry written in other languages and the opportunity to offer your own take on an early Irish poem, a silly [...]
WELCOME, my friends, to the third week of our April Poetry Celebration! Thank you with all my heart to all of you who have been writing, sending poems, watching, commenting, liking, sharing, and cheering us all on. You are making the celebration SHINE! This week, some THIRTY POETS sent in wonderful poems and I share [...]
Over many years, I've become something of an "essay whisperer," helping kids write that all-important and much-dreaded college application essay. Sometimes parents ask me how I got their extremely writing-averse kid to actually write and even to feel excited about it. Here's how: I pay attention to their ideas. I ask lots of questions and [...]
Seeking a bookmark this morning I came across a small envelope I made out of paper purchased years ago in Venice. Inside I discovered a tiny piece of Lokta paper completely filled with a list of things I love: color * my eyes * cats * green places * trees * sunlight * sunsets [...]
The second proverb in the series, this one a meditation on our blessed inter-dependence. It unpacks its meaning and its opportunity in a couple important ways and to my mind, it has never felt truer. Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine. People live in each other's shadows. As one beloved Irish teacher used [...]
Yesterday, a student asked me to write a letter of recommendation for her application to Harvard. At the end of her note, she asked for "constructive feedback" on how she could grow. This is my reply to her request, and I'm sharing it in hopes that it might reach the eyes of other high school [...]
Read: it’s your civic duty. I have never before felt this more clearly or more urgently. All summer I’ve been teaching students about the necessity of reading critically and evaluating sources with greater awareness and discernment. This is a new idea for many students and I’m aware that it can strike them as [...]
Teaching is really the best game in town if you ask me because it stimulates learning - by which I mean, my own! I faced an interesting challenge this morning and meeting it was fun and fascinating. One of my students asked me to translate a tale collected over Christmas 1930 by the Irish writer [...]
Hello, friends! Here is the second video in my new series, "Creative Hurts and How to Heal Them." This one is all about that scary bugbear, CRITICISM. How do we handle it? Is there such a thing as "good" criticism? How do we put it in perspective? I also share my own story of receiving [...]
