Bronwyn Harris, Author

If you haven't already spent your life savings on Black Friday or Cyber Monday, I have some ideas for you.  A lot of us have too much stuff - at least in this country.  Instead, it might be nice to do something good - something that is necessary and might not happen otherwise - in someone's honor.  Some ideas: Big Brothers Big Sisters - you can donate your time or money to help kids who really need it. Donors Choose - you can choose the type of project you want to fund, according to what your loved one would appreciate. (I greatly benefited from this site when I was a classroom teacher) Kiva - microloans, and you can give gift cards so your loved one can choose what to loan money to. Faith Network - an organization that helps public schools in Oakland and the surrounding area.  (It's a Christian organization but they don't proselytize.  They do teach reading and writing, which is a huge help.) I also have very close ties with an orphanage in Me...

I'm in New York visiting my brother and sister-in-law, so here's some reading for all of you. An article about how black boys are doing in school (some very interesting points). Teacher credentialing programs should be totally changed around . Happy Black Friday!  Try not to buy too much stuff. Three years ago: No News and No Clothes Four years ago: Vacation is Over                          Rainy Day Routine

I had a bit of a disturbing conversation with the teenager I tutor yesterday.  He asked me the definition of "immigration."  When I told him it was people moving to another country to live there, he disagreed.  He said, "You forgot the illegal part."  We talked about it and it turns out that he had only ever heard of illegal immigration.  Every time immigration was discussed on TV or in any other context he had heard, it was illegal.  He had NO IDEA that there was legal immigration.  Does that say anything about the tone of the discussion in this country? Three years ago: Dreaming of Teaching Four years ago: No Child Left Behind

...is a very interesting place. Today my 10-year old tutoring client informed me that "High school is mating season." The teacher of the second grade class I volunteer with let the kids pick their own group names.  The names are: Giants Christmas Kindly Tigers Snakes I particularly like that one of the group names is an adverb. Three years ago: Purple Hair                           Gulliver in Hookerland

First of all, I realize the title of the post will set some people off.  How's this: I promise not to judge you for seeing Harry Potter, or for getting excited about the movies.  I'm just not that interested. I first read Harry Potter  in 2000, right before book four came out.  Someone gave me book one for Christmas and I read it at some point during my first year of teaching and it was amazing.  Magical.  Wonderful.  I read two and three pretty quickly and then started becoming one of those people who counts down the days until the next Harry Potter book.  Even more exciting, so did many of my students.  I read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone to my third grade class and they absolutely loved it.  After I read it to them, many of them ordered it themselves from the book order, re-read it, bought book two, borrowed mine - they were hooked.  We didn't have a real reading curriculum that year, and one of the fifth grade t...

I'm going to suggest that the makers of my face powder change the name to "Vampire White."  Those of you who know me know that I am on the white side of white.  If you've been reading my blog, you know that the neighborhood where I was teaching had a distinct lack of white people.  Many of the kids had never interacted with white people except for the teachers at the school.  This led to some interesting conversations. This is another Halloween story.  There was a girl, named "Mary," who was a tall African-American girl, beautiful, athletic, and smart.  I had never had Mary in my class but she came to visit me most days. Mary had beautiful dark brown skin and, on this particular Halloween, was dressed as a vampire.  I was helping several kids with their makeup.  Most of them wanted to be kitties so I was doing kitty noses and whiskers with my eyeliner.  It was a cheap eyeliner and they had no Halloween costumes, so it was a worthwhile sac...

I've recently seen this graphic around the web, and heard a few people say that it's a great example of how Oakland is a "rainbow of diversity."  I wish I could insert the graphic here, but it won't work, so please take a minute to look at it.  The different colors represent different ethnicities.  If you don't recognize Oakland, it's on the right side of the bay and has a blue section (African-American) at the northwest end and a blue section at the southeast end.  Green and orange (Asian and Latino) are in the middle and red (Caucasian) in the hills. I guess that it is a rainbow of diversity in that there are separate stripes of color.  But it's not integrated.  It's not diverse.  The city as a whole is diverse, but the neighborhoods are not.  It reminds me of a time that someone told me that one of the high schools was "really diverse."  Someone else looked at her strangely, and said "Um, all black isn't diverse.  It's...

Everyone is talking about whether or not they agree with Obama and what the midterm elections show as far as if people like him or not... I just want to share again why it is so important that we now have a black president.  So here it is, from two years ago: Tuesday, November 04, 2008 A Black President I am so excited. First, let me say that I did not vote for Barack Obama because he is black. I voted for him because I thought he was the better candidate, and will make the better president. I think he will help how the rest of the world sees the United States. I don't think he is the Messiah and I'm sure I will be disappointed in him at times during the next 4 (or 8) years. However, I think this is the right direction for America to go in and I am thrilled because of the person we have elected, while still being unbelieving. However. While a lot of me wants to rant about how I can be a Christian and still be a Democrat, how liberal is not a bad word, how ...

Quick Halloween story (a little late - I lost my beloved dog on Halloween). On Halloween, one of my colleagues was dressed up as a bee.  He wore a black and yellow striped rugby shirt, big bug sunglasses, antennae, and wings.  This kid, "Timmy," walked up to him and said, "Mr. M, what are you supposed to be?"  Mr. M just looked at him and decided to go for making fun of the gullible kid.  He said, "Timmy, I'm a lizard." Timmy looked at him carefully and said, "That's funny." He ran back to me and said, "Did you know Mr. M is dressed up as a lizard?  The weird thing is that he looks just like a bee!" Three years ago: They Can't Keep Employees? Really?  What a Surprise! Four years ago: Eating Lunch!  Or not.

My wonderful doggie passed away last night.  I'll have another school Halloween story soon, but for now I'm just missing the doggie. Two years ago: Random Political Thoughts Three years ago: A Brief Political Note

In honor of today being the school day that most elementary schools had Halloween parties, I'd like to state for the record: Halloween is the worst day of the year for elementary school teachers.  I'm sure there are some highly energetic, dedicated, fun-loving teachers who love this day best but I was never one of them.  It's a day full of sugar, anticipation of sugar, secret candy being snuck  into school, costume malfunctions, kids who don't get the memo that costumes are not to be worn until AFTER lunch, over-involved parents showing up way too early, uninvolved parents forgetting to come, religious parents pulling their kids out of school, teachers who dress in wildly inappropriate outfits*, and general chaos. The next worst days (in order) in the elementary school calendar, from the teacher's perspective, are: 2. Valentine's Day (sugar, sugar, and exclusion) 3. St. Patrick's Day (pinching?  Really?) 4. the day before Christmas vacation. My f...

From a parent to her child: "Drink your orange soda before you eat your dessert.  It's good for you.  It's fruit." A student talking to me: "Teacher, did you put sugar on these carrots?   They sweet!  Vegetables ain't posta be sweet.  I ain't never had carrots before!" One year ago: De Facto Segregation Four years ago: One of Those Days

This is something from one of my favorite bloggers. He is a disability rights activist and does some pretty incredible work.  It's pretty incredible how many people he has affected, and mostly people who are not "valued" by many people in society.  Yet someone actually said to him that it's too bad he has no children, nothing to send into the future. What? Aren't all these kids ours?  Shouldn't they be? So I'm not repeating myself too badly, you can read about MY kids here , here , and here . I really do believe that we would ALL -- parents, children, and childless adults -- be better off if we thought of them more as OUR children.  And loved them all like they were our children. Three years ago: Book Clubs Four years ago: Homeless People is City Wildlife

I am good at entertaining children.  Very good. Possibly gifted. The key to keeping children entertained is to let them entertain themselves.  All you have to do is get them excited about something.  Today it was a measuring tape.  It fell out of my purse and the kids (I was volunteering in my Little Sister's classroom) and the kids pounced on it.  They started measuring their hair, their feet, the tables, and even their teeth.  Their accuracy left something to be desired, but their enthusiasm was incredible. When waiting around for field trips, I've developed this skill.  One of my favorite techniques is to ask who has ever broken a bone.  Or who has a cool scar.  All of a sudden, you have every child in the vicinity falling all over themselves to tell stories, and you have 20 minutes of entertainment.  Or ask about a pet.  You'll hear "Oh!  Oh!  Teacher, my uncle's cousin's girlfriend had a cat and one time?  Um...

How big do you think Africa is?  As big as the United States?  As big as China?  Check this out - if you are like most Americans, you have grossly underestimated it your whole life.  Africa has a slightly larger area as the United States, China, India, Japan, the UK, Spain, Mexico, Peru, France, Papua New Guinea, Sweden, Germany, Norway, New Zealand, Italy, Nepal, Greece, and Bangladesh, all put together.  There are over 50 countries in Africa (depends slightly on who you're talking to because of some disputed territory).  Somewhere around 2,000 languages are spoken in Africa.  African is not a language.  If you were surprised by any of those facts, you're not alone. I worked at a school that was about 50% black (African-American is a tricky term as not all black people are African-American, and, as I'm about to explain, many of the kids I know don't want "African" to be a word having anything to do with them.)  At this school, calling ...

In honor of Columbus day, here's a story from 2006: The same girl asked me once about Columbus. The conversation went something like this, and I have to say, I was very proud of her for the critical thinking skills she displayed. Student: Why do we call them Indians when India is a different country? Me: [some crap I can't remember about how Columbus got lost and thought he was going to India, so he called them Indians because he was assuming he was in India] Student: [stares at me incredulously] They got named the wrong thing because he got LOST? [thinks for a minute] And where does he get off naming them anyway? Who said the white guy could name them?? Three years ago: A Story from "Lamar" Four years ago: Email Wisdom

I used the last of the blue paper today.  The blue paper was donated in my second year of teaching, in a rather spectacular manner. By my second year of teaching, I was already exhausted.  I was trying to learn how to teach third grade, dealing with an administrator whose favorite line was "I can have your job, you know!" trying to figure out how to deal with standardized tests, and much, much more.  When I got to part of the curriculum that required the kids to cut and paste and my request for scissors and glue was met by the person in charge of supplies rolling her eyes and saying "We don't have those, " in a manner that clearly suggested I was clueless to how schools worked, something in me snapped.  This was the beginning of me begging for help. I'll write another post at some point about how I may have shamelessly begged every one of my friends and acquaintances to volunteer in the classroom.  I started by begging for supplies.   After quickly ...

I recently went apple picking with some friends and my Little Sister.  It was an extremely eye-opening experience to go to an apple orchard with a little girl from the inner city. She didn't know that apples grew on trees.  When I told her, she looked at me like I was trying to pull a fast one on her.  When she finally saw that I was serious, she asked me if any other fruit grew on trees.  Each one was a whole new revelation for her.  She told me that she had been sure that apples grew on the ground. We played a little game when we were driving.  You go through the alphabet: "My name is Annie and I like to eat apples."  She got F.  "My name is Flamantha."  Flamantha?  Yes, Flamantha.  The girl is creative. One year ago (one of my favorite posts): The Gecko's Vacation

I would like to hear from other teachers on this one.  I've written on this before, about trying to "discipline" and correct teachers using guilt , my story about being very very sick at the end of my last school year , my co-worker's experience taking time off when her mother-in-law died tragically , and when I tried to teach on crutches .  Here's my question: Is this unique to the district I used to work in or is this an inherent problem for people who work with children? A related question: WHY?  It's extremely unprofessional.  Everyone gets sick.  Everyone has family emergencies.  Unless someone is abusing the system, I really don't understand the guilt that seems to be induced so quickly by administrators. Four years ago: More Interesting Past Tenses Three years ago: Thing Number 75 I Don't Miss About Teaching One year ago: The Parent Factor

I miss teaching in the classroom.  I don't miss subbing.  This is what it was like: Three years ago: Thoughts on Subbing