Tag: teaching

• Grace on the Field

  As many of you know, I teach middle school language arts in a Catholic school located in an affluent suburb of Washington, DC. Yes, I spend all day with pre-teens and teens, awash in adolescent hormones, Axe body spray, egg-shaped lip gloss containers, and poor grammar brought on by texting and IM’ing.  Six periods a…

  michardillo

  May 10, 2015

  Essay

  100 metre, 400 metres, athelete, English, Eric Liddell, Flying Scotsman, football, language arts, literature, middle school, Olympics, sports, teacher, teaching, track

• The Top Ten Things Teaching Taught Me

  In 2002 I left a stressful but lucrative job as a real estate paralegal to live abroad for two years as an expat trailing spouse. It was the first time in my adult life that I had nowhere to go each weekday. Other than maternity leave in 1990 and 1992, I had been employed full-time…

  michardillo

  April 19, 2015

  Essay

  education, second career, teaching

• Poetry 101

  It’s early April and a damp, gloomy day out. Yet, in spite of the temperature being in the 40’s this morning, signs of spring are visible. When driving my daughter to the metro today I pointed out to her the forsythia in full bloom up and down both sides of the street. I told her…

  michardillo

  April 12, 2015

  Essay

  Cecil Spring Rice, e. e. cummings, edgar allan poe, Eleanor Farjeon, Emily Dickinson, forsythia, Gustav Holst, John F. Kennedy, Jupiter, literature, mary ellen solt, poem, poetic, poetry, Robert Frost, spring, teaching, The Planets, W. H. Auden, Walt Whitman, william carlos williams, william shakespeare

• In Other News This Week…

  It’s been a busy week for the international news media. A series of Saudi-led strikes pounded rebel targets in Yemen. Germanwings Flight 9525 crashed in the French Alps, killing all 150 people aboard, and as of now, it appears to have been brought down at the hands of the co-pilot. American Amanda Knox’s second trial for…

  michardillo

  March 29, 2015

  Essay

  bean plants, hair, hydroponics, middle school, science fair, teacher, teaching

• Snow Day: Who Loves One More, Students or Their Teachers?

  Yesterday we returned to school after a two-week break for the Christmas holiday. The day went well, albeit somewhat slowly, as first days back after break tend to do so. But, with mid-term exams looming in the very near future, students worked hard to get back up to speed. And, then, today? Snow day! First…

  michardillo

  January 6, 2015

  Essay

  day off, snow, Snow day, student, teacher, teaching, winter