I have tried hard to maintain the philosophy: leave work at work. I have done a good job of achieving this in the literal sense: I rarely, if ever, bring or do any of my work at home. However, there always seems to be some sort of pysical, emotional and intellectual residuals. My body is often tense. (It is even difficult to relax my muscles during ( Read more... )

Last weekend I had to decide whether or not I wanted to miss Easter service for the first time in my life. I was unable to convnice myself to break with tradition, so I decided to visit a church that is right around the corner from Dava's office. There was a part of me that was hesitant to go: I wondered if I should take part in a service that was ( Read more... )

My friend Melanie once had a vision that she was painting the world red with love; and I have tried to keep this image in mind since starting my teaching job in New York City. I had plans to go out and buy a red ribbon to tie around my wrist to remind me to love first...to be compassionate first...regardless of how my students may act or what they ( Read more... )

I wish that I could sit here and write about how much I love my job, but the truth of the matter is that I don't. Lately I have dreaded going to work, and routinely I have been living for the weekends. The more that I teach the less I want to be a teacher. On top of this I am beginning to lose my passion for Spanish and Spanish culture. The very ( Read more... )

Since I have quite a few native-speakers in one of my classes I was trying to figure out how to best divide up the class to do a Jeopardy review. I did not want the rest of the class to rely solely on the native-speakers on their teams to answer every question ( Read more... )

As I was driving home from work tonight I had an intense conversation with myself about my time, my priorities, my goals and my soul. My thoughts were the result of a simple question that my principal asked me today: "Kristin, would you like to tutor students in Spanish after school for a few hours a week?" My immediate thoughts were: Is this ( Read more... )

A couple of weeks ago, after finding out their grades on a vocabulary quiz, a few students became enraged that I did not give them partial credit for almost spelling a word right. As I was grading the quizzes the night before, I noticed that a lot of my students had not done well. Since I want all of my students to succeed I had to reevaluate my ( Read more... )

I read an article in the Utne Reader recently entitled "The Power of Intentions." This idea has manifested itself time and time again in my life, especially through the written word. It is time that I pay attention to my intentions and realize that they contain a potent energy. Whether or not this energy is positive or negative is up to me. (This ( Read more... )

A couple of weeks ago I found out that a few of my juniors did not have enough credits to be in the 11th grade. The students had the following options: 1.) Join a GED program; 2.) Repeat the classes that they failed in 10th grade with the new 10th-graders; 3.)Transfer to a new school as a 10th-grader; or 4.) Continue to take classes at BLA II as an ( Read more... )

"We are not here to fight in the war; we are here to make peace ( Read more... )