We don’t have to search long for a mirror to reflect the trickle-up effect of what has been happening in our educational system in the past 10 years; ask a professor. They can tell you. Over the past few years, I have spoken with a number of colleagues teaching at the university level about the … Read more
It has been 12 years since I created an exit strategy from my job as office administrator with an environmental engineering consulting team to become a teaching artist, to dedicate my life to my passion and identity as Poet. I started out in afterschool programs, although I did have some teaching experience with adults and … Read more
Quraysh and I presented at the Urban Word NY annual Preemptive Education Conference last week. During our workshop, there were several moments in which the questions and conversation took us a bit off the agenda to support the teachable moment. Teaching is a performance art and the teachable moment is always the element that one … Read more
This past weekend, my coauthor Quraysh Ali Lansana, and I presented a workshop based on some of the pedagogy in Our Difficult Sunlight at the Preemptive Education Conference in NYC. Thanks to Michael Cirelli and the Urban Word NY staff for the invitation and the event itself. And thanks to those who chose our session … Read more
Remember the harried call for “the moral majority?” How about the clarion for “family values?” Or how Spiro Agnew called the left “effete, intellectual snobs?” The tone of the rhetoric of the right for nearly 2 decades was to accuse the left of violating the values of the American Family. I have been asking a … Read more
Last Friday, just one week ago, over a great looooong lunch at Sparkytown in my hometown with a new colleague/friend, Yvonne Murphy, I made a life-changing decision. I am going to finish my B.A. I declare this publicly so I cannot back out. I have been declaring it all week to friends and colleagues. I … Read more
There is a lot of pressure when self-employed. The scramble for work, the constant follow-up, the volunteerism, the press to market and generate income, the bills and deadlines are enough to make for constant anxiety. Sometimes even panic. My poetry is taking second chair to all the other needs at this time. I am getting … Read more
A few posts before this, I spoke of my two young nephews. They constantly amaze me, just as their older cousins always have. Their older cousins are now adults with blossoming professional careers, one a few hours away, another on the other side of the country. I have so many reasons to be proud of … Read more
I shall be frank. It has been a tough summer. Nearly all the work I projected did not manifest. Budget travesties in the current climate of education and in the face of a horrid economy have meant that, once again, the rug has been pulled out from under me. I am running on fumes and … Read more
I have two young nephews, the youngest of my siblings’ children. In the hustle of my life as a teaching artist, and many months spent on the road with this career, I often miss important events in their lives: school plays, sports activities, even their birthdays. In addition, since so often I am waiting for … Read more