How Not to Draw Guns

Boys will sometimes ask how to draw a gun. In 10 years of teaching comics, a girl has never asked. Boys even ask me this in classrooms once occupied… More

False Choice

My daughter has had many stellar teachers, the kind who would put their kids' safety before their own. I can't stand the thought of those teachers acting as human… More

School Premises

I am acutely aware of how easy it might be for someone with a gun to cause the most atrocious of horrors despite the school's commendable efforts... More

Window

I am an English professor. I encourage my students to approach language as a complex and faulty and therefore fascinating system of visual and lexical signs. Lately I find… More

School Choice

Don’t waste time opening the windows when the tornado comes. Touch the door to feel for heat from the other side. Stop—drop—(cover your eyes)—and roll. Don’t shout “Help!” Shout… More

What We’ve Become

You see, my daughter's school is a preschool. Her classmates are 3 and 4 years old. We would never watch a movie at school. But saying we were would… More

Present

By walking, you escape the very idea of identity, the temptation to be someone . . . to have a name and a history. Isn't being someone also a… More

Makers

"I feel like we raised the bar on history reports." "And puppet shows." "I could make puppets all day long." "That's cuz we're Makers, Tess." "Yeah, Makers." ... More

Scott County Memories

Once, when I was living in Denver, my good friend Jon Pinnow became obsessed with the state of Kansas. . . . So we made plans to take a… More