Pencil sharpener

All my life, I have loved listening and reading words, watching them float out of a person’s mouth or off of a page, forming into images. As a child, every morning, every night, was spent listening… listening to my mom, dad, or ba (my grandmother) read to me. I would walk up to them with my tiny toes and button nose and give them a book, whether it be Goodnight Moon or Runaway Bunny by Margaret Brown, or a book by Eric Carle, most likely The Secret Birthday Message. As I have gotten older, I…

Everyone has felt the pain and sorrow of losing a loved one, whether it may be their pet, their relative, or simply a very close friend. People also cope in different ways when a loved one has passed away. Their reaction can range from crying and getting over it for a few days or a 180-degree personality turn from a usually happy person to a depressing one. However, others will find the loss of a loved one a chance to grow and mature as an emotionally stronger person. In the novel Boy's Life, by…

Beginning with the 1977-78 school year, the Mid-Valley School District rented the former St. Patrick’s School in Olyphant. That school year, it was used as an elementary school for students who would have attended classes at the building in Olyphant that was condemned. This building was only big enough to accommodate the kindergarten through fourth grade students from Olyphant. Students from Olyphant in fifth and sixth grades continued to attend classes at the former junior high school. The…

The fragrant smell of cookies fresh out of the oven and the faint sound of humming over Saturday morning cartoons. These were a few of the things that I associated with grandmothers when I was younger. Red lipstick kisses and stern smacks on the butt when a child was in trouble. These were also things that I correlated with grandmothers. Growing up as a member of the black community, I was fed the community narrative that the grandmother is the root of the family. She provides warmth, wisdom,…

Celie slipped into Mr. Cunnington’s classroom, tip-toed while hugging the wall, and glided towards Mr. Cunnington’s “executive” desk at the back right corner of the rectangular room. She paused, then crouched her petite figure behind the cool metal surface of the desk and leaned against the rugged wall that might’ve been white once upon a time, and sighed. It wasn’t everyday Celie made it this far, the trek across the room was fatal to anyone that arrived late. By now, Celie may have already…

A. Room set-up Criterion 1: “Democratic schools value collaboration and cooperation rather than competition”. (Pugach, 2009, p. 309) Discussion: Mrs. C does not meet this criterion since, although the desks in her classroom are arranged into pairs, some students sit alone. While every other student is sitting down next to a classmate they can interact and collaborate with, there are three students who sit by themselves. One student is not separated completely from the rest, but he does not have…