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My Day In Court

I’d rather be at my desk, shuffling my own papers. But a friend confided recently that he couldn’t abide self-important types who considered themselves too busy for jury service.

Crimes And Misdemeanors

A partner in crime, Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, a double-dog dare

School’s Out

An Interview With John Taylor Gatto

The first thing I discovered was that the types of learning that are measured by standardized tests are not real learning at all. To do well on a standardized reading test, for example, does not mean that you read well. There are approximately 150 categories of information that a complex passage of reading delivers, and the standardized test covers approximately six of those categories over and over again.

Girls

Besides teaching sixth- and seventh-grade English, I’m also homeroom teacher for the entire seventh grade, which consists of forty-nine girls who are impossible to tell apart as they all appear to be named Lisa and wear identical outfits — white blouses, green skirts, green knee socks.

Truant

Our high-school principal wagged his finger / over two manila folders / lying on his desk, labeled with our names — / my boyfriend and me, / called to his office for skipping school.

Memorial Day

I was impatient / as you selected / the flowers / one at a time / for the bouquets: / the peonies, pinks, / and coral bells / you had grown.