Author: Erin Grimm
-
In understanding of police
I want to say that it’s not fair to condemn the police without acknowledging my own complicity as a teacher who entered the field with the best of intentions but who had to step away when I wasn’t performing up to the impossible expectations placed on teachers in title one schools. Police officers and teachers…
-
Police Violence and Indifference in Seattle
The violence and indifference of Seattle law enforcement grieves me. Seattleites of color continue to endure a culture of terror. Seattle police officers have killed numerous unarmed people of color over the years. Just when there appeared to be a lull, officers killed Jaahnavi Kandula. They ran over her in a crosswalk going 70 MPH…
-
Developing a tutoring business…
I am developing a tutoring business that I started pre-pandemic. It had taken off and, when I read about shortages of substitute teachers, I stepped back from it in order to substitute teach. Substitute teaching helped the schools to stay open. This allowed students to receive free breakfast and lunches. The business was a simple…
-
Expectations with Compassion
Teachers hold themselves to a high standard. When teachers hold themselves to a high standard, they can form children into Christlikeness. We must embody what we want the students to become. Money gets in the way, so we need to accept that teachers aren’t paid well, some say. To which I respond, Yes! and then…
-
Grief at the loss of Affirmative Action
I am so saddened today to hear that affirmative action is gone. This program gave so much hope to my students in diverse schools. I have read of the lament of an acquaintance, a Black man, who is a college career and success specialist at a local high school–the hopelessness is palpable, and the only…
-
Good things come to those who…
“Good things come to those who work their asses off.” This is what the mug I’m using this morning says as I drink my coffee. However, the mug was made in China, where people who work their asses off don’t receive care and have no rights. As I drink from this mug in the mornings,…
-
On Teacher-Student Relationship
I’m not going to pretend like I know all the answers for this post, because the truth is that I don’t think there is a universal response for how to have relationships with students. Every student is different and every teacher is different. When I was a hospice volunteer I was told that there is…
-
What if things were different? On Self-Care.
I’m reading a really, really good book right now: Who is Wellness For? by Fariha Roisin. She writes with a decolonial mindset, but was raised in Australia, lived in Canada for a while, lived in NYC and now lives in LA. This means that she has an international decoloniality to her. She is Muslim, South…
-
A Sadness about Education
I am feeling a sadness about public education right now. And about education in the US in general. I am wondering whether we have lost what education means and what it is to have been effectively educated. When I was an undergraduate at UC Berkeley, I was definitely caught up in the humanities education in…
-
Writing Practice
One of the most important and crucial aspects of building the discipline of being a writer is to actually write, and for those of us who don’t like handwriting, to type, and for those of us who can’t/don’t type, to dictate. Dictation apps are available on iPhones and I’m sure on other devices as well.…