Your Style ~ Yourself ~ Your Life
Why Celebrate Small? If 2020 was a year to celebrate small by force, consider making 2021 a year to celebrate small by choice. While large parties, packed stadiums, and concert throngs hold a certain appeal, you may find yourself a little spooked by the prospect of returning to such large events any time soon. In 2020 we stumbled into the… Read More
A pandemic anniversary. I have been at school on some memorable, challenging days. April 20, 1999. The day of the Columbine High School shooting. My first year of teaching. September 11, 2001. My husband was less than a month into his teaching career, a couple of buildings away. He called my classroom to ask if it was real. December 14,… Read More
What do I get asked the most? How to get into college Dear Class of 2024: You have finished your first semester of high school. I’m guessing it’s not exactly what you thought it would be a year ago. And while some of that is because of this constantly evolving health crisis keeping everyone at home, some of it is… Read More
If there ever was a year we needed this holiday, it’s this one. So I hope you embrace Galentines Day 2021. Yet conditions in many places still make it too-soon to plan in person gatherings like a typical Galentines Day celebration. So it’s time to rethink this soul-feeding, girl-time celebration for our physically-distant world. Here are some ideas to rethink this… Read More
Are you surviving high school 2020? Pre-2020, I usually described my job in public education like this: “I enjoy helping students find a pathway that fulfills them – and it’s never boring, never the same thing twice.” While those sentiments still ring true, more recently I’ve been telling people that my job is “herding invisible cats.” I have a sense… Read More
Like many of you, I have spent much of 2020 grappling with Big Questions. What does it mean to be a person of color? Who and what is most important to me? How do I acknowledge my strengths – and my privilege? And how do I use it to help make the world a better place? I am doing this… Read More
Surviving 2020 Education: It’s Challenging It’s no secret that our current health crisis flung education into a tailspin – unsteadying most of the foundations of our schools as we have known them. As we have separated education from school buildings, we have lost our bearings. But as we find our sea legs in the ocean of distance learning, hybrid schooling,… Read More
How do you beat the winter blues in a tough year? As we careen through the final month of this unprecedented year, we have endured nearly nine months of a global health crisis, much of it in the undesirable position of “leader” in terms of infection rates and deaths. It is clear that this health pandemic has brought into stark… Read More
What are the Lessons from 2020? Life-changing. Unprecedented. Surreal. Those are some of my 2020 words. There are others that are a bit, um, stronger. Some of the most poignant and powerful words of 2020 I’ve read come from Sonia Renee Taylor: We will not go back to normal. Normal never was. Our pre-corona existence was not normal other we… Read More
