Wednesday, January 28, 2026

Getting Into the Swing of a Semester: Yesterday, We Doodled Teenager Archetypes to Get Ourselves Thinking About Teaching Middle & Secondary School

Visual literacy matters, even when you make your teen double fisted with Apple Watches, Jordan kicks, and Incredible Hulk biceps. What isn't captured is the pairing of Alfred Tatum's discussion of textual lineages, the need to understand and embrace youth cultures (and sub-cultures) and to individualize instruction so they see themselves in the math, history, science, English, foreign languages, health, etc. being taught. 

I didn't know if I'd make the whole day, having a terrible sinus headache that wouldn't go away. I had nurse-search a.m. obligations, came home midday to walk the dog, then returned for late classes with the graduate students. I made it. Somehow I subdued the headache and exhaustion, and had a productive class. 

I imagine I will feel this way all semester, as I haven't rested like I should, nor do I have a chance to catch up on mental recharging. I fight on for the love of the students and the content I'm fortunate to teach, but after a Monday of shoveling, a weekend preparing an asynchronous class for a Snow Day, and the lack of good sleep, simply has me feeling groggy. I'm hoping for a restful, catch-up day today, as Thursday and Friday are looking exactly as yesterday did...jam packed with responsibilities, meetings, obligations, and needs. 

And the temperature is cold again. I hate when it hurts. 

Of course, first papers are coming in already, so I will go through those, but they are low-key assessments and simply give me a feel for what I have. It's different this year. There are equal numbers of males in the literacy space as there are females. This is usually not the case, but we have a larger-than-usual cohort of math majors.

Whereas last year was heavy on the social studies folk, this year we're dominated by math kids. We'll make it work as we always do, and I think they are catching onto the fact that my two hour blocks fly by because it isn't two hours of listening to me squawk the entire time (although I could). Rather, as they finish an activity, I simply throw up the slides from the reading to say, "you just experienced what all these people are talking about."

Here we are humpday. Let's Wednesday this bad boy up.

It's a 14-Year Tradition in New Haven, But Mother Nature (Maude) Has Frozen Participation This Super Bowl Sunday

One of my favorite events every years is the IRIS 5K Run for Refugees. I've been fielding teams for about as long as I've lived in K...