Student: I’m sorry I screwed up. Teacher: You didn’t screw up. Student: Yes I did I was supposed to hand it in yesterday. Teacher: It’s ok. I never said there […]

Sometimes, people don’t really listen to each other. They wait for their turn to speak rather than pause to consider the other perspective. Arguing becomes pointless. It only works when […]

After my teaching shift each Wednesday at Seneca I walk over to the Korean place by the subway and order rice and add sesame seeds and sriracha. They like me, […]

I watch people gripped by fear for a future that hasn’t arrived, and when I try to say gently, this panic is over something not here yet, it only deepens […]

You can’t supply wisdom to someone simply by showing them words. That’s the trick in the teaching business. Like Arnold, the psychiatrist, used to say at our staff meetings, “a […]

When I applied for the job, I thought, Why not? I need full-time work, wasn’t that the reason to start the PhD after the house-fire and fuck-you-get-lost-rejection from the insurance […]

Nine As, eight Bs, eight C+s, seven A-s, six B+s, five B-s, five Cs, five C-s, three A+s, one D+, two D-s, three Fs. The statistics for my final marks […]

Most people cannot play guitar. Some people can play open chords, some can play barre chords but less and less can actually play well. Many are ok, but only a […]

The sequence of ideas in our class conversations never stops amazing me. I have a lot of international students. When reading from their journals, which is where they explore writing […]