Author: Adam

study guides

Brad, a friend and teaching mentor of mine, recently posted about how his online astronomy students’ teaching evaluations complain that they don’t receive study guides to prepare for exams. He wondered out loud (well, on…

college bound and simple truth

Yes, perhaps it’s true that this is all good indication that we’ve “done an amazing job” and “this is what she’s meant to do” and, maybe even we’ve “been preparing for this moment” though I…

the kids are alright

I think that Karyn and I both thought we’d cry a lot more during the graduation ceremony. This is what we’d braced ourselves for, after all, basically just streaming tears through the whole ceremony. I…

fatherly advice

Dear Anna, You said when I am “a little less busy” that you’d welcome some help with your graduation speech. It’s like your last homework assignment, some algebraic story problem and term paper and ballet…

taking in air

Early on Tuesday morning I found myself where pavement ends, the roadway cinched up with a horseshoe bend that’s edged by a hundred diagonal parking slots. Coming around that counterclockwise turn and past the trailhead,…

speaking in tongues

There’s an easy flow that washes through me when I’m teaching, something I don’t attain in private conversation. In the everyday, I’m in the corner; I’m a quarter turn behind meshing gears; words are dragged…

running aspirations

I just got back from a weekend centered around running in a trail marathon that advertises its adversity and ruggedness as some of its virtues. In pre-race information runners are warned about cacti, uncertain footing,…