I am a teacher. Yes, I was a husband, a parent, a friend, a…but almost always I would first say, a teacher. I loved the classroom, my daily world mingling with students’ minds and hearts. Where I learned as much as offered. Where I found compassion and confusion, delight and distraction, energy and inertia, curiosity and apathy…it was all there everyday.

What a privilege to have spent most of my teaching years with thirteen-year-olds who never failed to bring themselves into my classroom. Who let me know when I was on and when I was off. Where I could do and say what I wanted to, free to be the teacher I was becoming. A maverick some would say.

It was the me who stepped over the edges, ventured into unknown territories while others stayed in front of their students. Where teaching became teaching and learning. Where each day was new, with consistencies and surprises, insights and disappointments. I loved the classroom so much so that I looked forward to Mondays. 

Now I write with a mission to share that adventure. I want to bring my past into the present to make for a better future. To invite teachers, who today are under undo stress, to close their doors and seize control of their classrooms. To make them their own, to be with their students, to hold conversations, to seek to know who they are, what they think, what they care about. And to learn together.