the hummingbird’s tongue

I had a moment yesterday when I wanted to quit teaching. As soon as I submitted my grades, the whining began…no matter how clear you are about the course requirements, no matter how many opportunities you give to earn extra credit, there are always a few students who think you owe them something more. I [...]

Read Full Post »

light a fire

The only good thing about waking at 4am this morning was finding this email from a former student in my Facebook inbox. You’ve probably heard about the teacher in Michigan who was fired for mobilizing her students around the Trayvon Martin case. Radical teaching—which is what we NEED to achieve social justice—should be celebrated, not [...]

Read Full Post »

tea & sympathy

Grading. Grading on the subway. Grading while on line at the burrito place. Grading before going to bed and again first thing in the morning. Sigh. I took a stack of papers with me to France but didn’t make much progress, in part because I got off the plane with a cold. The south of [...]

Read Full Post »

remix

Yesterday was not my best teaching day. I try to let my students express themselves in class, and I try to listen patiently even when problematic ideas are coming out of their mouths. After all, the point is to figure out where they’re starting from—what they know now so that we can try to move [...]

Read Full Post »

quiet

This introvert is taking a much-needed day of silence…yet as I walked around the park this morning, baseball cap tipped against the blowing snow, I marveled at the kindness of others. I did three “meet the author” presentations this week, and every time I left a school, I said a prayer of thanks for the [...]

Read Full Post »

the proper channels

I don’t want to talk about the situation in Arizona—the white woman governor poking her finger in the president’s face, the need for brown-skinned immigrants like me to carry ID at all times, and now the banning of books that do nothing more than tell the TRUTH. I wrote about the dismantling of the Mexican [...]

Read Full Post »

on a dime

I’m not a spontaneous person. In fact, I have anxiety issues, which means I try to plan as much of my life as possible. I walk with an umbrella in case it rains. I have a mini pharmacy in my purse to deal with any health emergency. When I travel, I use Hop Stop to [...]

Read Full Post »

the ethical professor

(l-r: J.E. Franklin, Rosamond King, Louise Meriwether, Angela Davis, Pamela Booker, Rashidah Ismaili, me) On Monday I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Angela Davis; she was being filmed by OWWA (Organization of Women Writers of Africa) and that interview will be added to their collection at the Schomburg. We gathered at NYU at the [...]

Read Full Post »

meet Ranger Doug

One of my goals in writing about black history is to ignite the imagination of urban kids—many of whom walk past historical monuments every day without understanding or appreciating their significance. Ship of Souls will come out next year and since the book is dedicated to my cousin Kodie (who lives in Canada), I decided [...]

Read Full Post »

headstrong/heartstrong

One of the things that surprised me most during my conversation with Jacqueline Woodson was her admission that she sometimes doubts if she can complete another book. At this point in my writing career, I feel like I’ve got lots of novels yet to come but when I think about my teaching…sometimes I wonder if [...]

Read Full Post »