I had texted Katy Mangan, one of the two hosts for the monthly Do Tell Story Swap, to tell her I was going out of town for the June virtual story swap. Over the past eight months Katy and Vicky Ness had taken over my responsibilities as the Zoom Host while I was dealing with my career change from high school to college teaching. Nothing could have prepared me for the text I received a day later. It wasn’t from Katy. It was from her beautiful daughter, Lucy, who, I believe, l

Originally I set out to write a blog about leaving my job as a high school instructor. I was going to focus on my personal experience and heartbreak, but as I began to write, I found that there were issues much larger than myself at stake in the field of education. My experience was indicative of large changes that have been taking place in the landscape of schools in general. I use that word “landscape” intentionally because when we try to describe some of the more abstract

On Sunday May 24, my family surprised me at dinner when they presented me with a book. My face was on the cover! Who was the author? More than one hundred people contributed to the book, which was divided into chapters: family, friends, colleagues, students, and alumni. Each person in the book wrote something about what my twenty-four years of teaching high school had meant to them. I was absolutely speechless in the face of this collection of words by most of the people I kn

In the last blog, I wrote about the three kinds of trust identified by Bryk and Schneider in their foundational book about trust in schools. I remarked that the erosion of relational trust I was feeling over the last decade, through four different heads of school, may actually have been a pivot within the school from relational trust to contractual trust. One reason as to why this shift is occurring may have to do with how vulnerable a reliance on relational trust places tho

This past weekend was the 150th anniversary of Jack London’s birth. He was born January 12, 1876 in San Francisco. After a childhood spent at various ranches in San Mateo and Livermore, and then an adolescence in Oakland, interrupted by a stint traveling on trains (for which he was arrested for vagrancy in Wisconsin), in 1905 he purchased Hill Ranch, which became the foundation for his 1,400-acre Beauty Ranch. Today you may see all of it preserved as the Jack London State Par

I did some quick research into what writers have said about trust in schools. While the following is not an exhaustive dive (by any means), it will give us some useful terms with which to explore the topic of how trust has been eroding in schools (and in society). In this installment, I will briefly explore the 2002 foundational text, Trust in Schools, by Anthony S. Bryk and Barbara Schneider. Bryk and Schneider identify three different kinds of trust: organic, contractual,

In March 2026, after twenty-four years of teaching, my long tenure at the school where I spent my career came to an end. The months leading up to this were an arduous period of transition, involving internal processes that eventually led to my departure. While the substance of those matters remains private, it was inevitable that the shift would ripple through the community. For more than a month now, I have been rehearsing what it means to be retired. I wake up, make coffee,

Admittedly, the second child doesn’t get the same kind of intense anticipation… we’ve been through it once with his sister. Everything he...

If you have been to any of the larger storytelling festivals such as the one at Jonesborough or Timpanogos, the chances are you have seen...

There is nothing like meeting face to face after knowing someone on Zoom for three years. This is what I experienced four-fold at the San...

I have told you the story every year… the same one every time. When I graduated from high school, my father caught me after I had...

The first word that comes to mind is “watermelons.” Then “powerful mamas,” “sprigs of mint,” “sophisticated haircuts,” and “women...

On Friday, Jun 3, 2022 my wife received news that her mother had gone into the hospital. She had been given the same room in which my...

This is the third part of the series of blogs I am doing on cultural appropriation and storytelling. As I mentioned in the first two,...

As part of my ongoing research for the third volume of the Live to Tell series, which is focusing on cultural appropriation and the...

I spoke today via Zoom with storyteller, podcaster, and educator, Carolina Quiroga-Stultz, who currently resides in Eastern Georgia. My...

On Thursday, July 22, six members of the SAC board presented one of SAC's signature programs at the National Storytelling Network...

For what I believe is the fourth year (possibly the fifth) in a row, SAC contributed to the San Francisco Free Folk Festival, organized...

This past weekend, Saturday, June 12 and Sunday, June 13, my daughter graduated with a Masters and a Bachelors degree in English. She...

On Wednesday April 28, the Humanities 3 classroom was wowed by a visit from Chicago Moth Storytelling Slam champion Nestor Gomez. Nestor...