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Category: Essay

ELA Is a Tech Class

Posted on April 10, 2022April 12, 2022 by Thomas Joseph Wilson

A Technology I am the teacher of a technology class; I am an unacknowledged STEM teacher; I am an English Language Arts teacher. This is a cute way to start an essay, but, seriously, the “Arts” part does a good job of camouflaging the core of ELA. And that core is learning how to use…

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A Modest Seat in the Classroom

Posted on March 6, 2022March 7, 2022 by Thomas Joseph Wilson

Age and the “New Tech” Fallacy Fourteen years ago, when I was a student-teacher and still using a personal computer hijacked to run Linux instead of Windows, I did a lot of campaigning for Google Docs. This was wasted effort: Google conquers better than its creators. When I was officially hired as a licensed teacher,…

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Tybee Tides

Posted on January 24, 2022January 25, 2022 by Thomas Joseph Wilson

Floating Specks Large swells of water bobbed the boat as it made its way out into brackish water of Tybee Creek. The Atlantic horizon before them was interrupted by one last mass of land that was their destination–Tybee Island proper, with its popular shops and beach. Lisa and Greg Smith normally wouldn’t have gone out…

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The Neighborhood Anarchists

Posted on January 17, 2022January 25, 2022 by Thomas Joseph Wilson

I. No one needs to ask the origin of my neighborhood’s name: Deer Park. Deer walk the streets of Deer Park, Ohio, like humans have yet to take over. They are the living ghosts of nature, sleeping in front yards, staring at you with a tense readiness when you walk past. The penance the deer…

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Solid Things

Posted on January 9, 2022January 25, 2022 by Thomas Joseph Wilson

When the Paperless Movement was in full force, I was fatalistic. Going totally digital was inevitable. And like anyone who needs to prepare for a new world, I started readying my supplies, or, in this case, getting rid of them. As we now know, the Paperless Movement didn’t quite take. Though cardboard boxes are the…

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Protein

Posted on August 25, 2021January 9, 2022 by Thomas Joseph Wilson

The Question Through all of the various cultural arguments about what is offensive and who sees the world the right way, I have realized that a word has slipped through: “protein.” I think I first heard this neologism or reframed use of the word from some popular restaurant that will probably dawn on me as…

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Teaching to Academia

Posted on August 17, 2021January 9, 2022 by Thomas Joseph Wilson

Reading for a Refresh Deep into the summer, yet a few weeks before school, the professional development books I stacked on the far reaches of my home desk morph from a thing to politely ignore to a an interesting to-do list. This year, I have a book about Socratic seminars, three books about writing, one…

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Shaken

Posted on July 19, 2021January 9, 2022 by Thomas Joseph Wilson

Environmental Control Usually, when you grow up with something, like a childhood of enjoying not-so-pleasant looking ripe bananas–speckled oxidation brown, far from a pristine green or yellow–it becomes normalcy, a state of comfort and not-surprise. It’s eating around the mold. It’s sleeping without worrying that your body will roll out of bed onto the floor….

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Alone at Whistling Arch

Posted on July 12, 2021January 9, 2022 by Thomas Joseph Wilson

The Fears That Bind Us Coming up any sort of stairs was my greatest childhood fear. Sure, I wouldn’t be happy about going down to a dark basement: I’d race for the lights and move slowly around corners. But, for some reason, I felt like going upstairs was like defying a monster’s plan, like you…

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The Lunch Walk

Posted on March 13, 2021January 9, 2022 by Thomas Joseph Wilson

The Industrial Nopes One of the reasons I became a teacher–and I know this is not what I should be saying–was so that I wouldn’t have to work in a cubicle. It was at the beginning of my teenagedom that I had suspected that the cubicle environment would not be my bag. I don’t remember…

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TJ Wilson is an English Teacher who writes on the side.
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