It is approximately the third question we ask each other. Unless we’ve found something interesting in the answers to “What’s your name?” and “What do you do?” we move on to “Where are you from?” It’s the most universal of the first-conversation questions. After a while you just can’t tell if someone should be in…
Category: Learning
Time and Space
“Ms. Dahlstrom… can you read my paper?” -Everyone English 11 has a paper due in an hour and a half. Originally, I hadn’t intended that they would turn in their first literary essay at 10:00 PM on a Friday night. It had been Tuesday morning, at the beginning of class. Later, remembering that our department…
The Western Front
“Comrade, I did not want to kill you…. But you were only an idea to me before, an abstraction that lived in my mind and called forth its appropriate response. It was that abstraction I stabbed. But now, for the first time, I see you are a man like me. I thought of your hand-grenades,…
The Canadians
It’s about pace, the First Nations versus the European explorers. Like shopping. If you’re just looking, you might spend ages in the store, trying everything on and deciding if you need it. If you want a white tank top, you go to the store, find the tank tops, pick up the right sized white one,…
Parents
“Oh hey, I met your mother yesterday!” I know this observation won’t make me any cooler. As “the new English teacher”–a title that makes me feel like I’m teaching in a small homesteading town instead of an international Christian school–I could probably use some credibility points. But it’s been ages since being cool was my…
E11 & CH
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.” Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. James 4:13-14 “So you teach English?” “Yes. Eleventh grade.” “And… you’re not Canadian?’ “Um……
Bright Things (Come to Confusion)
Swift as a shadow, short as any dream; Brief as the lightning in the collied night… And ere a man hath power to say ‘Behold!’ The jaws of darkness do devour it up: So quick bright things come to confusion. A Midsummer Night’s Dream (I, i) I am ending the Ingraham ninth grade year with…
The Way Home 