Tricia Ebarvia

My 9th graders and I are in the middle of reading Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novel, Purple Hibiscus. We are about half-way through the book, and it seemed a good time to hear from the author herself by watching a TED Talk she delivered a few years ago—a talk titled, “The Danger of a Single Story.”

I first saw Adichie’s TED Talk shortly after it was first given back in 2009.   Read More

A short post today as I get ready to head back to school tonight to chaperone the “Mr. Pioneer” talent show/fundraiser (add this to my growing list of things I thought I’d never do)…

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about my teaching practice, why I do the things I do, how I can be more effective, etc. Of course, this line of thinking started to overwhelm me a bit, so I came back to this one basic question – what are my non-negotiables? What are the things about teaching and my classroom that I would absolutely not compromise?  Read More

A few days ago, I asked my 9th graders to set a reading goal for themselves. For many of them, this goal could have been something as simple as staying focused while reading or stopping periodically to assess their understanding.

“What’s your goal, Mrs. Ebarvia?” a student asked.  Read More

Last year, as I was reading Austin Kleon’s Steal Like an Artist, I came across a passage that struck me:

If you ask yourself, ‘What’s the best thing that happened today?’ it actually forces a certain kind of cheerful retrospection that pulls up from the recent past things to write about that you wouldn’t otherwise think about. If you ask yourself, ‘What happened today?’ it’s very likely that you’re going to remember the worst thing, because you’ve had to deal with it—you’ve had to rush somewhere or somebody said something mean to you—that’s what you’re going to remember. But if you ask what the best thing is, it’s going to be some particular slant of light, or some wonderful expression somebody had, or some particularly delicious salad. – Nicholson Baker

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This morning, I asked my AP Lang students to take out their notebooks and respond to the following prompt, “List five things you’ve done that you never thought you’d do.”

There were some interesting, if not random, responses. Among them:

• I never thought I’d get almost arrested in Atlantic City.
• I never thought I’d grow up.
• I never thought I’d like almonds.
• I never thought I’d need spring break so much.
• I never thought I’d be at school past 2 a.m.
• I never thought I’d pull an all-nighter.

My students have been blogging weekly on any topic of their choice, and our in-class notebook writes sometimes serve as inspiration for a longer piece on the class blog.

I wrote along side them this morning, so here are my “Five Things I Never Thought I’d Do…” I never thought I’d… Read More

Yesterday I wrote about Mrs. Mackintosh, my twelfth grade English teacher. I actually started that post thinking about a few different teachers in my life, but my memories of Mrs. Mackintosh soon took over the entire piece.  So today, I thought I’d reflect a bit on another teacher. I’ve had this story in my head for a while now, and I suppose that now is as good a time as any to “get it down.”

It was Back-to-School Night at my sons’ school, September 2012. As my husband and I walked through the too-small hallways towards my sons’ classrooms, I saw an older gentleman in the crowd approaching from the opposite direction.

I would have recognized him anywhere. Tall, shaved head, and smiling eyes—it was Mr. Wemple, my former high school social studies teacher.  Read More

Because my boys are in public school, every Tuesday afternoon, I drop Matthew and Toby off at our church for their weekly P.R.E.P. class. When I was growing up, we called it C.C.D., but now it’s just P.R.E.P., or Parish Religious Education Program. I went to parochial school up to 8th grade, so the C.C.D. kids were always “those kids” to us. Now my kids are “those kids.”

Each Tuesday after I drop the boys off, I drive by a former teacher’s house. Barbara Mackintosh—Mrs. Mackintosh or sometimes, “Mack,” to us—was my senior year English teacher. She was a tall, white-haired woman with an infectious laugh and just enough of that subversive sparkle in her eye whenever some idea got her riled up.

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At the invitation of a friend, I recently joined the “Opt Out of Standardized Tests in Pennsylvania” group on Facebook. The group, made up of area parents, encourages parents to become informed about the drawbacks of high stakes testing and provides parents with the tools necessary to exempt their children from the yearly PSSAs and Keystone exams administered in the state. I’ve seen several parents in my district post that they’ve opted their kids out of the tests.

Which leaves me in a conundrum: do I opt my kids out of the tests?  Read More

It’s already 9:13 p.m, and my 2nd grader and I still need to finish putting together his display board for the science fair tomorrow. Unfortunately, I was sidetracked earlier tonight trying to finish up a few video tutorials for class tomorrow. It’s surprisingly difficult to record a screencast with a four-year-old in the background.

Though I know the science fair is a valuable experience for the boys, I’m exhausted by it all. If they told me tomorrow that they never wanted to do another science fair project again, I might be okay with that. On the other hand, if my 2nd grader’s jelly bean taste test or my 4th grader’s circuit board experiment lead to a Nobel Prize in Physics, well, I guess I could say that it all began on a late night in March amidst construction paper scraps and rubber cement.

So a short post tonight because, like I said, I’ve got future physicists waiting. Read More