I think the first time I thought about our comfortable middle class existence was during a slumber party at a friend’s apartment. It must have been 5th or 6th grade. The friend’s mom was a single mom and the girl shared a tiny room with a younger sister. It was a lightbulb moment. My family moved to Bangkok a few…

The album I come back to again and again is In Utero. My husband and I were talking about it the other day, and he thinks it sounds dated, but I think it holds up. I always wonder where they would’ve gone, musically, had Kurt not died. My 14 year old self cried for days and days over his suicide. I found out days…

God, ScarJo is insufferable. Instead of gracefully saying, “I’m just not the marrying type,” she makes these dumb sweeping statements about the unnaturalness of monogamy. I mean, kudos to her for not trying to stay married when it’s not working, but she seems to be missing the ability to see that different types of…

When I was getting my teaching credential, I read some article on classroom management that talked about different teaching and management styles. It talked about how some teachers are content specialists, some are generalists, some like rules, etc. The one that stuck with me the most was that some teachers teach out…

My maternal grandfather did not believe women should go to college. My mom and aunt had to fight to get AAs at the local community college. My mom’s degree is an “acceptable” early childhood ed AA.

This is my daily fantasy. And, I’d like to add that those of us north of the Golden Gate and not actually on the Bay shoreline will be just fine as the sea levels rise. My place of employment will be underwater, but I live on higher ground. I look forward to finally owning beachfront property.

Just talk to any middle school teacher (like myself). In addition to being obsessed with flipping water bottles, dabbing, and selling slime, my students are convinced that the illuminati is real.

Kelly, are you from Marin?

Teaching Tolerance (tolerance.org) is always a great resource for incorporating social justice into your lesson planning.

Yes! This is one of the reasons I give my district side-eye over our 1:1 iPad program. I’m not being a Luddite. The iPads are great for many things, and offer accessibility to so many students. But you can be damn sure that I am still teaching mini-lessons and modeling on paper with a doc cam. My kiddos are writing…

I can’t speak to their divorce, but if you are a fashion lover, I highly recommend following Sturino’s Instagram and blog, The 12ish Style. The dogs often make cameo appearances. Sturino is body positive and features all kinds of brands, not just high end.

Cuyana makes gorgeous, minimalist leather bags and they have showrooms in SF and Chicago. I think they have one on NY, too. I just a leather tote for Xmas and I’m all 😍😍😍.

Don’t worry, your kids’ teachers are doing the same things.

I just want you to know that I appreciate your Butthole Surfers-inspired user name. 😜

Those Jaques Lu Cont remixes gave me life in my 20s.

One of my most exciting Jez commenting moments was when Lindy replied to a comment I made about the lack of Strong Belwas and his tiny vests in the TV version of GoT.

My Italian grandmother goes by Gramma, which I didn’t even know was unusual until I was older (I grew up in a WASP-y town). I never asked why she doesn’t go by Nona or Noni. She’s second generation. Her mother, my great grandmother, went by Grandma. They all spoke Italian in addition to English. I’ll have to ask the…

Yes, but I graduated from high school in 1998. So, pre-NCLB.

26 year olds grew up in the world of No-Child-Left-Behind. There’s no excuse for being ill-informed, but so many people between the ages of 15 and 30 had huge swathes of their k12 education (if not all of it) during a time when schools’ primary focus was test scores. They literally weren’t taught critical thinking…

Yesterday was ROUGH. My students had soooooo many questions, and I’m not sure I did good job answering them. I’m not going to lie, I was really happy to have a pre-planned release day today to work on curriculum with a colleague, although I could barely focus on writing a sub plan yesterday. And I’m really glad that…