Tag: personal

  • Naming the Silence

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    Margins of planners. Notebooks. Arms. Chairs. Bookshelves. Trees. Rocks. Napkins. Any blank space as an invitation for my pen. I scratched out song lyrics and lecture highlights, webbed thought-explorations, inked out feelings I wanted to examine, captured quotes from all my favorite authors, promised friends that I loved them, tested forms and the boundaries of…

  • The Talk I Never Gave

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    Last Tuesday, a friend reached out and asked about giving a TEDx talk at the United Nations International School. It’s been a draining couple of weeks, and I was intrigued but not feeling quite on top of my game. I asked what he wanted me to talk about, ready to say ‘no.’ Agile, he said.…

  • External Brain

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    This summer I worked some days at an adventure playground. I was there Saturdays, with two other adults and sometimes volunteers. It was work I really enjoyed, and I have lots of thoughts about it, but the biggest impact it’s had on my ALC-NYC school year life is that it’s where I started keeping a day…

  • I need a nap ;)

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    Started the week like this: (Thanks @abram)   Mittwoch like this: (Thanks @creeperclaws @heartabby @starwars @beths10 @muffinsthecutest and @pigsfly!)   Ended it like this (with woodworking and Minecrafting and improv games and cooking and and…):  

  • This week!

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    It’s very exciting to set up new students with blogs 🙂 Especially when they jump into writing independently, leaving me 10 minutes to write alongside them! We had three students visiting this week. They jumped right into offerings and games with other kids, which was great to see. I spent a lot of time working…

  • Making it official.

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    Growing up, I was often told that I should go to school to become a professor. Meanwhile, I read stories about and observed the lives of master teachers. And I started asking how they got to where they were. A pattern soon emerged, and it made a lot of sense to me: the master teachers–the…

  • Broadcasting

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    It’s a behavior that various magazines I read as a kid attributed to pregnant women and children in the early stages of speech development. You’ve likely encountered it…”I want macaroni” or “I’m going to the bathroom” or “I’m drawing now.” These are all examples of broadcasting. Now, I’m not pregnant or celebrating a new ability to express…

  • Playgroup

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    My parents moved to a new area when I was born. They were young first-time parents, and my mom especially was looking for community. They wanted community for themselves as humans looking for company and parents looking for advice, but also for my sisters (not yet part of the picture) and me as we grew…

  • Slog Blog

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    I haven’t been blogging. I’ve been going through the past few weeks totally present during the school day, diligently responding to Slack/texts/emails/calls after school, showing up for lots of meetings, and simultaneously juggling some large happenings in my personal life. Frequently, I’ll stop and think about wanting to include something in my weekly blog post–a…

  • Who I Am and What I Do

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    (…right now…in the ALC context…) I’m Abby. Yes, it’s a nickname. Yes, with a ‘y.’ I’m NYC-based, presently Holding and co-facilitating at ALC-NYC with @ryanshollenberger. We play regularly with @tomis @abram @bear @drew and other roving ALFs who swing through our space, and we love hosting visitors from other ALCs. At school, kids come to…

  • Editing

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    It’s like I’m a self-directed learner or something. Some of my ALF friends write amazingly, and I really wanted to be like “Hey, just write and get all that fascinating, useful, beautiful storytelling out of your head and onto this page so I can read it. Then let me fix the punctuation and grammar so other…

  • In which she has a weird[er so than usual] week and re-learns things she forgot

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    This morning, there was a full solar eclipse and a super moon. Over other continents. I have astronomical envy…especially since we’re getting snow here in NYC, on this first day of spring. I’ve been trying to keep my personal life energies and ALC life energies separate this week more so than usual, and I felt…

  • The Smell of Pony Noses

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    There’s a giggle-filled werewolves game happening in front of me. Between a crackling fire and a giant group kanban. @themadhatter is DM-ing and dancing, next to the kettle heating water for my mid-day mint tea. Most of the other adults are missing, helping install windows in a community member’s addition, around the inverted pine tree…

  • Brainpickings Gem for New Years

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    Famous thinkers’ self-growth resolutions? Thanks, Brainpickings! I’m not big on New Year’s resolutions. I dread being asked for my “resolution,” as for most of December and January the word conjures in my mind a memory of facebook-feeds-gone-by filled with well-meant and mostly ill-fated resolutions to go to the gym every single day. Or the sincere…