My students have obligingly pulled their chairs into a rough circle on the second afternoon of school in 2013. We’re reading Emily Dickinson aloud, each student sharing his or her favorite from last night’s reading, explaining why it was so special. My classroom fills with the call and response of familiar words in familiar voices, punctuated by…
Tag: students
Things (And Mostly People) That Made Life Better This Year: 2012 Edition
Black Forest Academy–this ever-changing community of staff and students that flow in and out of this little valley on the edge of the dark hills–is a place of tradition. Do something once, whether it’s dumping someone in a pond on their birthday or granting crazy Christmas wishes, and it’s likely that you’ll be asked to…
Trying to Play Soccer, And Other Dangerous Endeavors
I’m completely soaked by the time I get to the soccer field, near the end of my 5k afternoon run. It’s been raining for ages, you see. Four or five days. And it’s that cold, wet rain that would be snow if it had any decency, but it doesn’t, so it just keeps raining and raining….
A Letter of Thanks
On Thanksgiving Day in Germany, we go to school, like other Thursdays. To celebrate, I asked my students to write letters of thanks. Their letters were meant to be symbolic, written to objects, places or people that wouldn’t necessarily respond. As I think of what I’m thankful for this year, it’s more a group of…
Thanksgiving, Now and Yet to Come
It isn’t an ordinary evening at Maugenhard dorm. The seven oblong tables, typically arranged side by side in the dining room, have been pulled end-to-end into a long table, and every chair in the house has found its way upstairs to this mega-table. The boys come to the table, giddy with anticipation, wearing shirts and…
Do It Yourself
“What are you supposed to be?” Everyone, Fall Party 2012 Emily and I walk back to school Friday night, partially costumed as our respective favorite things. That’s the theme of this year’s High School Fall Party: Our Favorite Things. All students and staff have been instructed to dress up as… essentially anything. Anything that we…
In the Dorm
It’s quiet when they leave. When supper was finished, the younger boys washed the dishes and mopped the floor, while the older ones packed and I baked banana cake. Then, an hour later, we piled down the stairs and out to the parking lot, where we waved goodbye, Sound of Music style, to the seniors….
A New Year: Reading and Recommending
You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all. II Corinthians 3:2 (English Standard Version) It’s like a high school version of Laura Numeroff’s If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. “If you teach all the eleventh graders English–and both they and you do a reasonably good job, and…
Of Graduation, Extravagant Gifts
Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen. Ephesians 3:20-21 (italics mine) “I think, I think, we can keep it under an hour. It’ll be tricky,…
A Junior Farewell
I’ve loved this year. I spent today, the last day of classes at BFA, as I’ve spent many days with this year’s group of students, sitting on the grass by the river, talking about books. Thankful tonight for the blessing of working with these students I so deeply admire and will miss dearly. In lieu of…
The Way Home 