Category: For What It’s Worth
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From Lake Effect to Skyline Chili
Growing Up in Erie, PA…..because it’s okay to love Erie I’m 38 now, living in Cincinnati with three kids, a career, and a to-do list that never ends. But every once in a while—usually when it snows or I smell lake water or overhear people talk about their love and obsession with Skyline Chili (in…
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Surviving (and Thriving) in the Middle
Let’s discuss the elephant in the room…the classroom that is: Let’s get one thing straight: teaching middle school is not for the faint of heart. You are entering a world where deodorant is optional, emotions are unpredictable, and sarcasm is practically a second language. But if you can laugh through the chaos and learn to…
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Before the Bell and the Babies:
A First-Year Teacher’s Tale Let me take you back to a time before diaper bags, dinner duty, and digital calendars filled with swim lessons and pediatrician appointments. It’s me. First-year teacher me. Twenty-something, bright-eyed and… wildly underprepared for what teaching middle school actually meant. I walked into my first classroom with color-coded folders, inspirational posters…
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Middle Schoolers and Their Favorite Questions
…And How To Survive Them. Ah, middle schoolers. That delightful age where they’re too cool to care… but also desperately need to know everything. As a part-time teacher and full-time chaos coordinator (aka mom), I’ve become fluent in Teenagerese — a complex language spoken mostly in groans, eye rolls, and oddly specific questions that leave…
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Coffee ☕️ Crayons 🖍️ and Curriculum 📝 