Donna Gerard
Bio
Every day the world starts anew. Reframe your troubles, take a look around you, and get busy being you.
Author of Who's Tougher Than Us? The Realities of Teaching. Check it out on Amazon or go to my website, donnagerard.com.
Stories (34)
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Use The Things You Own
I’m writing about one thing for two reasons. Use the things you own. Reason One: To only keep the things we use eliminates both physical and mental clutter. I tend to like a place for everything and everything in its place. That doesn’t mean I manage to live up to this ideal. It just means I try.
By Donna Gerard3 years ago in Lifehack
Deck The Walls With Your Own Stuff
When we bought our first house, we had a large expanse of living room wall to decorate. We decided to shop around for artwork until we found something meaningful to us to hang. When we moved out seventeen years later, we still had a blank living room wall. We never found anything that “spoke” to us, and it took me eleven more years to figure out why. I needed to curate and make wall décor of my own. It wasn’t enough for me to hang the best of someone else’s art or buy something that color coordinated with the room. I really wanted to personalize my space with my own art.
By Donna Gerard3 years ago in Art
Loophole Trip
We met in Rome. Let me be more specific. We met in Rome this year. Last year we met in Venice. She always wanted to see Venice. By she, I mean my wife. Ex-wife? Former wife? Wife from a former life? It's hard to explain. Technically speaking, I'm dead. She's alive. We've just celebrated our Cancerversary. It's an awful word, I know. But when you find a loophole connecting eternity to "the world", you call it what it is and go with it. I think next year I'll take her to Iceland. We never got to see the Northern Lights.
By Donna Gerard3 years ago in Fiction
TEACHING IS NEVER BORING
Teaching is never boring. After I finished college, I took a job as a secretary in the accounts payable department of a major book publishing house. I hated this job because I was never very busy and spent my days waiting for my boss to give me something to do. I asked for and got more responsibilities, but even those only kept me busy 2-3 days per month.
By Donna Gerard3 years ago in Education
The Perfect Wife
I always loved crime shows. Criminal Minds. Dexter. The Equalizer. Older stuff like Columbo, Perry Mason, Quincy. Every night after the kids were in bed I turned on the TV and settled in for the evening. Trecia always sat with me. She never failed to know who done it and know what clues would point to the murderer. It seemed like normal fun. We were married for 16 normal years. Suddenly we weren't normal. Suddenly we weren't married. She was dead. Thank God.
By Donna Gerard3 years ago in Fiction
Teaching Never Dies
I whole-heartedly and unapologetically believe in the American Dream. I love the idea of liberty and justice for all and I think it is what we, as a country, should be aspiring to. We are not there yet, but I think we can and should achieve it. Where did this this deepest belief start for me?
By Donna Gerard3 years ago in Education
Declare a Catch-Up Day!
Do you recognize this scene? You have five sets of math quizzes to grade. You can’t see the top of your desk as it is littered with miscellaneous student work, four sets of papers you need to return, two lost water bottles, various stray pieces from the science lab, and three posters that fell off the wall. Virtually every student is missing assignments because they were absent, they lost them, or they handed them in late and they are sitting somewhere in your ungraded miscellaneous assignment pile. You still have to check Google Classroom because there’s more ungraded stuff there. You have e-mails to answer, and there’s an untouched pile of Stuff that was in your school mailbox. The kids’ coat closet is overflowing with forgotten winter coats and gloves even though it is spring. You have to check in the permission slips you just collected, and grades are due next week, as well as your lesson plans. There’s a staff meeting after school. As you contemplate how to dig yourself out of your predicament, Jeffrey is jumping around because he just discovered a cockroach in his desk. It is apparently feasting on the cupcake he left there last week. Yeah, the kids need to clean out their desks too. Oh, and you have to teach today’s lessons which will generate more mess, more assignments to grade, and more stress for the many students who just want to catch up as much as you do.
By Donna Gerard3 years ago in Education
Why Teachers And Students Need Summer Vacation
My two favorite parts of the school year are September and June- the beginning and the end. It seems counterintuitive, doesn’t it? If I love school enough to revere September, wouldn’t I be sad in June when it all ends? If I couldn’t wait for the end of June, why would I be excited to start all over again in September? The beginning of the school year is full of promise. By June, the year has run its course, and everyone needs a break- a reset.
By Donna Gerard3 years ago in Education
Teachers Are Master Recyclers
When you enter your classroom for the very first time, chances are you’re walking into a rectangle with four bare walls and a bunch of desks. You don’t want to spend a whole lot of money changing your empty room into a great learning environment. As a science teacher, I always had an inordinate amount of Stuff. I needed lots of containers to hold the Stuff. So I was always saving crazy things from paper towel cores to bread ties. You never know what you might need for the project you haven’t thought of yet.
By Donna Gerard3 years ago in Education
