The Writer's Poke

The snow comes down steadily, like the promise of freedom. By tomorrow, we are supposed to have up to 13 inches, but it doesn’t fall quickly enough for the hundreds of kids hoping and longingfor a snow day. Think of all of the children praying for a Snow Day – a day without classes. A day without school books and teachers’ nasty looks. I’ve often heard college students complain that colleges never cancel classes. That’s not 100% true, but it is true that colleges don’t cancel classes as a rule; I suppose the main reason is that colleges don’t use school buses to transport students. But college students will often make the decision for themselves on whether or not the weather is a good enough excuse to skip. Can you imagine anyone with P!nk tickets longing for a snow day cancellation? That’s inconceivable, right? Or, imagine if you had airplane tickets to Miami. You would be very upset if the snow delayed your trip. School, I guess, doesn’t rank up there with a P!nk ...

I like to watch football, but I couldn’t tell you much about what happened last season. I do remember who won the Super Bowl, but that’s just because it happened a few weeks ago. Who won the past five Super Bowls? I don’t have any idea, do you? And how did all of the hours I spent watching football last season improve the life I’m living today? Unfortunately, I can’t honestly say that any of that time spent was an investment in my future well being. We all need our diversions, and I’ll continue to watch football. Nevertheless, I recognize that I need more in my life than football to be content. I need to engage in activities that have lasting value. When I spend too much time just “killing time,” I feel unsatisfied. In fact, more than feeling unsatisfied, I even feel angry; and I feel depressed. Staying engaged in activities that matter takes some dedication; it is work to stay out of the rut, but ultimately, it’s much more fulfilling. This year I made it a goal to go t...

I found a quarter in the parking lot the other day, and I smiled as I picked it up.  “Guess what,” I told my wife later that night, “I found a quarter today.”  “Good for you,” she said, without any sense of sarcasm. I had no immediate need or use for the quarter, and I threw it into the change bin in the kitchen. At some point it will contribute to the purchase of a cup of coffee, perhaps. Obviously a quarter doesn’t mean much these days, but I suspect that most people still take the trouble to bend over to pick one up when they see one. The point is, the quarter has value even if it has no immediate use, and even if it isn't worth much by itself.  Every day I go into the classroom, I feel like, metaphorically-speaking, I’m giving each of my students the chance to pick up a quarter. Heck, most days, I feel like I’m literally giving each of my students the opportunity to earn back the equivalent of one class period’s tuition. And yet, I don’t a...

In his TED Talk entitled “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” Sir Ken Robinson tells the story of a little girl in art class. When an adult asked her what she was drawing, she said, “I’m drawing God.”  “But how can you draw God?” asked the adult. “No one knows what He looks like.”  “They will in a minute,” she replied. What a great response, and how true. This little girl has just as much right to decide what God looks like as anyone else, and yet there are some people that claim the right to tell us what God looks like. But just as we cannot know what God looks like, we also cannot know what God “wants," although again, there are plenty of people that will try to tell us what He wants. Why do we let them? The adult in Robinson’s story above does not give the child the worst response possible, as a far worse response would have been for the adult to tell the girl what God looks like. Most people have no real sense of God, other than what they’ve been told. Mo...

Cameron Russell is an underwear model, and after being an underwear model for ten years, she claims that she will always be perceived as being an underwear model. If she wanted to run for President of the United States, who would vote for her? After all, she is an underwear model, and that's all she can be. Her advice to young girls? Don’t become an underwear model. Instead, try to become the underwear model’s boss, or work hard and do something that takes education and skill. Being an underwear model, she claims, only requires knowing how to follow the posing directions of the photographer – something that apparently anyone can do.  Other than that, there’s not much to modeling other than being lucky. Russell claims to have won the “genetic lottery”; she is fortunate enough to have the right “look” at the right time. She’s skinny, she’s white (but properly tanned), and she’s young. These three characteristics are enough to make her attractive in our society, and ...