I’ve often felt that a teacher’s life is suspended, Janus-like, between past experiences and future hopes; it’s only fitting, then, that I’m preparing for this new year by looking back. Here’s a countdown of last year’s gratitude journal entries that reminded me how kind, clever,
Like millions of people, I play Wordle each day in The New York Times. If you are unfamiliar, Wordle is a logic game in which you get six guesses to figure out a five-letter word. After you submit a guess, you get feedback about each
I don’t usually gasp while reading how-to books for new professors. But then, I don’t often encounter revelations in them as jaw-dropping as Marybeth Gasman’s: “When I was a tenure-track faculty member,” she states in Candid Advice for New Faculty Members (2021), “I wrote in
It happens every time. Months ahead of the event, I sign up to attend a teaching conference and essentially commit to spending three days (sometimes more with travel) away from home. Then the semester starts, and I get caught up in the whack-a-mole that is
One of the courses I am teaching this semester is a senior-level course titled Autonomic Nervous System Regulation. In this class, we examine the autonomic nervous system (ANS), which is the part of our nervous system that governs involuntary physiological processes, such as our heart
My mother was not your typical 1990s Beanie Babies collector. She didn’t care whether the little pellet-filled critters that she scavenged for at flea markets and rummage sales and on eBay were in mint condition or whether their heart-shaped name tags were still intact.
I must confess, I’ve always been skeptical about group work. Raised in East Asia, my K–16 education relied heavily, if not exclusively, on lectures. Even during my graduate studies in mathematics at a flagship public university in the US, my classmates and I rarely engaged
I often think teaching should be an Olympic sport. It takes skill, knowledge of your craft, a lot of practice, dedication, will, and resilience. All these attributes have been on display as the world has watched the games this summer. As a teacher, there are
From an early age, I was immersed in the Muslim tradition that taught me to learn from every facet of the natural world—from the majesty of mountains to the quiet diligence of ants. This philosophy is meant to cultivate a sense of humility within us
A childhood friend of mine passed away a few years ago. We worked on the high school yearbook together, but what was for me an extracurricular became for him a lifelong passion for journalism. He majored in it in college and became a sports reporter.
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