eclipsing science
When I was six years old, the path of a total solar eclipse’s shadow ribboned across my home, my hometown, and my elementary school. It’s stored in that dreamlike haze of longterm memory, but I…
Category: personal essays
a call for art
I know I’m not alone in feeling overwhelmed and urgent. There are refugees and crises and rights and marches; there are proclamations and orders and lawsuits and commentators on the Sunday mornings. My feeds are…
ode to students
It’s 7:30 AM on the Monday of finals week*, deep into the month of December. It isn’t yet light outside, and probably would seem even more dark except for the fact that there’s 8 inches…
end-of-semester teaching and redemption
I suppose this happens every year, but it feels more ridiculous each time. Although it’s not a true disaster, as I face the plunge into the final week of coursework I tell people that my…
grace remembering
Walking across campus, 14-year-old Grace had a moment of recognition as we passed by the short, steel posts that prevent traffic from heading down pedestrian paths. “That’s where we would get our clues.” It took…
learning an American Tune
And I don’t know a soul who’s not been battered. I don’t have a friend who feels at ease. I don’t know a dream that’s not been shattered or driven to its knees. Oh, but…
democratic discourse
Democratic discourse in 4th graders doing scientific investigation.
capable of anything
Maybe the place to start is to publicly thank Donald Trump for providing a case study and an example of what it means to be a thoughtful human being. But you might get the wrong…
coyote of Telegraph Hill
Note: I’ve been assembling a list of drafts of things that, for my own sense of forward progress, I need to make sense of and move into the foreground. For now, I have this, an…