Teachers spend most of their daytime hours with children. Teachers at every level, coaches, counselors, cafeteria workers and yes, custodians, spend their hours trying to make children's lives different, if not always better.
I love election day, and I love to vote.
I love seeing America vote, through the prism of my older working class neighborhood in Riverside, California.
My mother was born in Switzerland, my stepfather in Canada.
I've always told my children that Americans will tell you pretty much anything, but that convention dictates that we don't like to talk money or politics.
More than half of my former students teach - elementary and high school, community college and university. I taught them to be passionate about literature and writing, and to attempt to translate that passion to their own students. They are rookie teachers, most likely to be laid off and not rehired, even though they are passionate.
