teacher

  • Sentence

    My daughter’s AP English teacher gave his students five minutes to describe themselves in one sentence. The idea was to help his students to comprehend the power of language to communicate ideas but also to help them understand themselves while making themselves understood. Her teacher said that most people are strangers to themselves, which as…

  • Picture

    My Dad has been cleaning out his attic and today brought me a trash bag full of treasures from my early life that my mother had saved over the years. Going through old cards I had given to her was a little window into the person I was when I lived under their roof, most…

  • Communion

    As a music minister at a First Communion Mass, I have a front row seat for some real beauty and also some outright hilarity. I watch the facial expressions of the second-grade children as they receive the Eucharist for the first time, and it can be hard to keep my place in the music; they…

  • Beautiful

    Beautiful. Amazing. Impressive. These are words my yoga teacher routinely used during our practice today. Part of me wanted to believe she was talking about me, though I probably didn’t deserve it. Part of me thinks she uses these words routinely because she is an inherently encouraging person. Regardless, whenever she says something positive, I…

  • Work

    I have been sick for about a month with an upper respiratory illness that has affected how I hear, sing, and breathe, and it’s been hard to do those things in my work as a preschool music teacher, but mostly, I’ve managed. Yesterday, I had to call in sick for the first time in forever,…

  • Cookies and Tater Tots

    Each time I step into the my hometown elementary school to teach Kindergarten music, I’m hit with the smell of cookies and tater tots.  It’s a smell that brings me right back to the time when my kids attended this school, and it evokes strong memories of those long-ago days.  I can see my Kindergarten-aged…