A Reluctant Adult

My senior year in college, I discovered Taylor Mali, a teacher turned poet who wrote about one of my favorite subjects--teachers and the hard work they do. This Tuesday, public school classrooms around the state of Minnesota will be inundated with school children while the parents do their happy dance as the bus pulls away from the curb. Another year, another nine months to change the lives of the children with which we work. As my friends and colleagues prepare to change the world once again, I leave you all with this clip of Mr. Mali performing his now-famous poem, "What Teacher's Make." And don't you guys ever forget it. Happy First Day of School. 

The Great Minnesota Get Together--otherwise known as the MN State Fair--began today. And if you remember back to my post from last August, you'll remember what that means: My summer is over. As I watch the local news stations offering tips for cheap state fair parking and the newest deep fried foods on a stick, in my head, all I hear is a slow, sad funeral march. Goodbye summer, old friend. I hardly knew ye. College students poured back into town last weekend, a cool breeze is wafting in my window, and my beloved MN Vikings have once again traded many of our rising stars in favor of an aging quarterback and promptly bumbled their preseason game. Fall is officially here. As always, I feel a little melancholy with the ending of the summer. For someone who has always measured life in terms of school years rather than calendar years, the end of August always forces me to look backwards at another year gone. And looking back this year, it is difficult to put into words what I...

I live in Minnesota's 6th Congressional District. For those of you who haven't been following the recent news concerning the Republican Presidential Race, that means that my constituents are responsible for the atrocity gracing so many magazine covers these days: Michele Bachmann. First things first--be clear: I did not vote for this woman. Now, I understand my politics are not for everyone, and I understand that there may even be times when Republicans--this pains me to say--may be (partially) right on some things. I admit I have taken great joy over the past few years in calling Bachmann crazy (and a few other names I shouldn't repeat in public) but I've recently come to see the danger in that sort of rhetoric. And not because I'm wrong, either. Bachmann recently made the cover of Newsweek in a famously unflattering picture above the headline "The Queen of Rage." Conservatives complained the picture made her look crazy. They were right. And as m...

Since having my oral surgery--the only real medical procedure I've ever had done--on Tuesday, I've learned a few things. I thought I'd share: 1. Google is a hypochondriac's best friend and is therefore inherently evil if you are sick and anxious. 2. Not eating while taking narcotics will result in being violently ill and told you are no longer allowed to take narcotics. This causes a considerable amount of pain and cussing. 3. There is a remarkable amount of food that you really don't have to chew if you don't want to. 4. Tylenol is amazing. Especially if you happen to experience the situation mentioned in #2. 5. When your dreamy oral surgeon tells you that taking out a horizontally-impacted wisdom tooth will be the same as taking out a partially erupted wisdom tooth, kick him in the shins and run. He's lying. 6. I am a coward when it comes to pain and the anticipation of pain. However, as the situation mentioned in #2 proved, I also have a relati...

Thirty-two hours ago, two of my wisdom teeth (the evolution of which we discussed in the previous blog entry) were wrenched from my poor mouth. Other than the lack of sleep and tears that preceded the surgery, everything went well. I was extremely happy to find that my oral surgeon lacked the typical sadistic elements one has come to expect from those crazy individuals who specialize in ripping teeth from people's heads. He was not only a good-looking man (something even my husband pointed out to me during the consultation when my surgeon briefly turned his back on us to examine the x-rays), but he seemed to agree with my own (unmedical) diagnosis that I did not need to remove all four of my wisdom teeth. While he did persuade me to remove the one tooth I was afraid of extracting, I figured he met me halfway, so why not? I signed the forms, my husband was hustled from the room, and surgery commenced. Other than the extremely painful IV process, which entailed the nurse repeated...

Back when we were all Neanderthals, our diets consisted of a lot of caustic food. The lack of cooking meant that much of our food was damaging to our teeth. In fact, by the time Neanderthal was roughly 16 years old, his back molars would already be damaged and shrinking from his diet. If Neanderthal couldn't eat, Neanderthal would die, so evolution kicked in to make sure his broad jaw could continue to grind up that raw meat and all those nuts. Evolution thought: "If you're going to wear away those molars I gave you, I shall provide you with new ones!" And bam. Third molars (also known as wisdom teeth) began to grow. Neanderthal was saved. Evolution rocked. Fast forward thousands of years. Fire is discovered. People cook food. Our jaws shrink. Now, third molars are no longer necessary, as our back molars have ceased to rot out of our heads by the age of 16. People learn to make money off these "third molars" by calling themselves oral surgeons and rippin...

Tonight I watched the documentary, The Lottery , which follows four young children who are attempting to navigate through the confusing labyrinth of the NYC educational lottery system. The children in question were trying to get into a public charter school in Harlem called Harlem Success Academy. I found myself simultaneously enraged and sympathetic to the message of the film. I'll start with the rage-inducing factor--the founder and mouthpiece of the academy, Eva Moskowitz is (there is no other way to say this) a horrible, grating person. While I respect her desire to educate all children at higher levels and her refusal to accept that poor economic status and background will mean academic failure, I find her deplorable for her constant vilification of teachers and unions.Do not misunderstand me; I do sympathize with her struggle and frustration with poorly performing schools. I do, however, reject her notion that failing schools are the fault of the AFL, NEA, or the teachers w...