A week at Westerly — this is the elementary school both my daughters attended. I was lucky enough to spend the week there doing writing workshops with the third and fourth grades culminating in a grand poetry jam on Friday afternoon. The auditorium was darkened, the stage set, names drawn and many poems

Driving through Pennsylvania in the twilight of October is nothing if not a colorful experience! That drive was only surpassed by the fun I had visiting Mt. Nittany and Park Forest Middle School and schools in State College and meeting with all the students and teachers. Four days in the district, it’s hard to pinpoint

Once in a while a student question just sticks with me — usually the ones I don’t have answers for. Last Friday (now Sunday) following the final assembly (eighth grade, last period, we all survived) after I had reminded the kids of the rights and responsibilities of free speech, revealed personal facts about my

And even though today started before 6AM and the game is in extra innings after 11PM, even though the school day ended with a last period assembly of eight graders on a Friday afternoon and the school was an hour’s drive from home and even though I’m a month behind in my blog and they

I’ve seen the Discovery specials on salmon, how they leap dramatically up waterfalls to get upstream. What they don’t show you on TV is the bonepiles of salmon that don’t make it. How they fall into piles of decay and become sushi for their canabalistic fellow travelers.
Catching salmon is about timing

I once received directions to a school in southern Ohio that read: Take the interstate to the state route, turn onto the county road, when you get into town turn right at the stop sign. No matter what the street name, there’s only one stop sign. The last sentence began, and when you