Blog

Liz Wessels’ office is an unassuming room, not much bigger than a closet, tucked away behind a printer. The room is dimly lit by a small lamp, a welcome change from the fluorescent lights lining the hallways and classrooms at John F. Kennedy High School in Cedar Rapids...

Time to announce my New Year’s resolution…. I’m kidding. I have no New Year’s resolution. I made a New Year’s resolution once. It didn’t work out. When I was in college, my roommate and I decided to join a gym and get in shape...

As the days grow shorter and the nights become colder, people all over the northern hemisphere hunker down and prepare for winter’s icy blast. Many people turn to their televisions or smart phones for entertainment. Others might read a book, which is arguably more relaxing than staring at a flickering monitor or screen...

Am I the only one who thinks that school lunchroom staff members are the nicest and happiest people in the school building? Maybe it’s because lunch is everybody’s favorite class subject. (I know it was the one class I really excelled at!) I also think it takes a certain kind of person to serve up two meals each day to hundreds of hungry kids...

One cold winter day when I was in second grade, a kid on the playground dared our schoolmate, Becky, to put her tongue on the metal tetherball pole. She didn’t believe him when he told her that her tongue would get stuck to it. She found out the hard way that he was correct. I remember how Mrs. Jenison ran over with a cup of coffee and poured it on Becky’s tongue to unstick it from the pole...

The final bell has rung, and all the students are gone for the day. A peaceful silence has fallen throughout the middle school. Now is the twilight time of day for educators — that time after students have left the building, but before the maintenance workers come through to clean rooms and hallways...