Hi, I’m Greig — welcome! Here you’ll find sharp writing, creative ideas, and standout resources for teaching, thinking, making, and dreaming in the middle and high school ELA and Humanities classroom (Grades 6–12).
The Roman god Janus as depicted on an ancient coin.
New and old faces to anticipate the new year.
The Romans had a god named Janus. He had two faces - one looking backward into the past and the other looking forward into the future. For me, the New Year represents this paradoxical view - looking forward and 👀 looking back.
To be Janus-faced is to face this contradiction.
And this time of year it’s customary to reflect on a year gone by and to make resolve for the upcoming annual. Now whether you assert that the 2010s are for sure done with or not (yes, there is a controversy about this) - I feel like a new decade has begun (and I’m anticipating a ton of jokes about 20/20 vision and Barbara Walters).
Faces - familiar and novel - to ring in a new year.
Stray Comments On New Year’s Resolutions for 2020
I want to walk more. That means 10,000 steps a day.
Read more books this year.
Write every day.
To remember my resolutions throughout the year (but wait - I don’t recall last year’s resolutions!)
Talking to an adult learner on the N train today, she told me she likes to see the young kids squirm in their seats when she gets to interpret Shakespearean sonnets. “I have a whole different outlook on love than them. It’s not the same.” My N train companion is not alone being older than her colleagues.
One out of three students
in this year’s freshman class will most likely be over twenty-five years of age.
More adult learners
are going back to school.
What’s the number one motivation?
Desire to learn.
As the baby boomers retire, more are fueled with renewed cognitive interest or are tired of doing the same thing time and again. It’s like Camus imagining Sisyphus pushing that damn rock: you have to think of something new for the descent.
2. Fitting in
Part of going back to school is a brain thing. Older students
report
feeling out of place among younger students and find it hard to adjust to new educational attitudes that may differ from what they remember from previous schools. It’ll be different for sure, but fitting in is part of the cognitive process of starting something new.
Rodney Dangerfield in his first economics class.
Video Courtesy:
ZaTbone
There are challenges to returning to the classroom, but if Rodney Dangerfield could do it, so can you.
3. Finding your way
Anyone can go to university if they have a passion. In fact, having a passion makes more sense for those who have already straddled careers and family, because they have had more time to think about what they want. One
indicator of success
is just that: focus and knowing what you want, having goals, joined with life experience.
4. Revitalizing options
Who says you can have only one career? Billie Letts, of Where The Heart Is fame,
wrote her first novel
when she was in her 50s. Older and older, it doesn’t mean sapping innovation and creativity. Older people are seeking second, third, and even fourth career choices. It’s a glimpse into the future. It’s where we’re going, so don’t let ageism creep into the hallowed halls. The younger set now vies for the honor roll with a silver-haired genius.
5. Being an outlier
We’re living longer. The adult brain is still spry. Voices from across the age spectrum offer different takes on life. You might be older than your professor, and your age has made you an outlier. But outlier status means you give a fresh perspective in the classroom. You’re changing the bell curve. Like Shakespeare meditating on love — or the lady on the N train — learning something new at the apex of life is not letting go of that “ever-fixed mark” that “looks on tempests and is never shaken.”
