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“Too Perfect to Be Loved”: Women, Class, and Independence in The Philadelphia Story

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For this analysis, I chose the 1940 film The Philadelphia Story , starring Katharine Hepburn as Tracy Lord. This is one of my favorite movies, but I had never really watched it with a critical eye before. I watched it first to decide what I wanted to focus on. After that viewing, I decided not to analyze the entire plot. Instead, I focused on how Tracy is represented as a woman within the world of the film. My unit of analysis is Tracy’s characterization: how she speaks, how others speak about her, what roles she is expected to play, and how the film resolves her independence. I used a simple coding sheet that looked at who speaks or acts, how Tracy is described, what emotions are allowed or criticized, how class shapes the story, who is treated as normal, and who is missing. One of the most obvious patterns in the film is that Tracy is admired and criticized for the same traits. She is intelligent, witty, beautiful, confident, and socially powerful. At the beginning of the film, she s...
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Distance Learning

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Distance learning is one of the biggest shifts in modern education. For some, it represents endless opportunity. For others, it brings back memories of frustration, isolation, frozen screens, confusing platforms, and technical issues that always seem to happen at the worst possible moment. I tend to see it as both. Distance learning has opened doors that were once closed, but it has also created new problems that educators and learners cannot ignore. One of the biggest benefits of distance learning is access. Information that used to be difficult to find is now available almost instantly. Students can watch lectures, read articles, access digital libraries, communicate with teachers, and collaborate with classmates without being in the same physical space. Not that long ago, if a person wanted to study a specialized topic, earn a degree from a faraway institution, or learn from a certain expert, geography could be a serious barrier. Now, a learner in Oklahoma can take a course from a u...
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One-Sided Narrative - Public Education is Bad

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Open any social media platform and search up public education. You will find an overwhelming number of posts disparaging public education and educators. I see it daily. Unfortunately, I also hear it in my own family. The message is usually the same: public schools are failing, teachers are not doing enough, students are out of control, and education is not what it used to be. Sometimes the criticism is about test scores. Sometimes it is about discipline. Other times it is about politics, technology, or the belief that schools no longer have high standards. After a while, that narrative can start to sink in. Even as someone who has taught for 19 years, I am not completely immune to it. There are days when I look around and understand why people are frustrated. Teachers are being asked to do more and more. Students have more needs than ever. Many students are behind academically. Behavior can be challenging. Phones, social media, and constant technology have changed the way students focu...
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Dialectics - Reflections on a Dialogue with a Colleague

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This week, I interviewed a colleague who differs from me in race and life experience. She is a Black educator who has taught for thirteen years and was named Teacher of the Year both at our campus and in our district. She also recently completed her master’s degree in leadership. For the first four years I taught at our school, she was the only Black educator on our campus. I found this concerning due to our diverse student population. While we have a slight majority of white students, we also have a large number of Burmese students, followed closely by Black students. I have always noticed the strong relationships she builds with students. They respect her, trust her, and respond to her in ways that show how much relationships matter in education. Our conversation focused on discipline and bias in schools. She shared that, from her perspective, Black students often receive a large number of discipline referrals compared to other students. She did not describe this as always being the ...
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Group Work and Jigsaw Learning

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Group work is one of those things that sounds simple until you actually have to do it. Put people together. Give them a task. Let them learn from each other. This should be easy, right? Not always. On a personal level, I have never loved group work. I tend to want to work on my own, organize my thoughts in my own way, and get things done without having to negotiate every step with other people. That does not mean I do not see the value in collaboration. I do. Students need to learn how to listen to others, explain their thinking, share responsibility, and work through problems together. Those are real-life skills. Most of us do not spend our lives working completely alone. We have teams, coworkers, families, committees, and meetings. So, yes, collaboration matters. But I also know group work can go wrong quickly. One person does all the work. One person takes over. One person disappears completely. Someone gets confused and just nods along. Someone else gets annoyed. Before long, the a...
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Border Crossings

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For my Border Crossings activity, I had dinner with a friend who is a native Spanish speaker and her husband. Prior to the dinner, I asked them to spend most of the meal speaking only in Spanish. The goal was simple: I wanted to feel, even briefly, what it is like to sit in a space where the language around me is not fully accessible. My friend loved the idea. She is also an educator and works with English Learners, so she immediately understood the purpose behind it. She did not just talk around me, either. She pulled me into the conversation. She asked me questions in Spanish, used gestures, changed her facial expressions, and gave me all kinds of clues to help me figure things out. And I was still mostly clueless. Every now and then, I caught a familiar word. Sometimes I could tell from her tone or body language that she was asking a question or making a joke. I could usually sense the mood of the conversation, but that was not the same as understanding it. I was piecing together me...
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Autobiographical Reflection - On Who I Am

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Who am I? I am not one who usually sits around reflecting on my identity in a deep or formal way. I tend to think about who I am in more practical terms. I work at being a productive and caring teacher. I work at being a good and loyal friend. I work at being a family member who values the bonds we share. Those things matter to me more than trying to define myself perfectly. Still, when I step back and really think about it, I can see that my identity has been shaped by many roles: teacher, student, daughter, sister, friend, reader, and lifelong learner. One thing most people probably know about me is that I am an avid reader and a lover of stories. If friends, family, or colleagues were asked to describe me, many of them, if not most, would probably say, “She loves books and her cats.” Honestly, they would not be wrong. Stories have always mattered to me. Books have given me places to escape, ideas to think about, and people to understand. Reading has helped shape how I see the world...
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