Strem Talks

As many of you know, I was recently offered a teaching position in Ifrane, Morocco.  The announcement went out on Facebook and shock, awe and congratulations were uttered with varying degrees of enthusiasm.  While visiting my former school, I was able to tell my former students about this new crazy adventure.  While most were a little taken aback by the news many didn't seem surprised once it had sunk in.  It seemed like such a "Strem" thing to do.  Clearly my name had become synonymous with daring.  I was ecstatic to hear that.  Now, I'm down to nineteen days left in the Pioneer Valley.  Nineteen days left in in the apartment with the crazy roommate family that I was lucky enough to find.  Nineteen days left in the place that I have called home for the last eight years.  A week after that I will officially leave the continent and move over three thousand miles away. For the past few months, every time I think about it I end up with ...

Dear Eren, I am writing this the year after your death and it is so incredibly hard but there are some things you need to do for the amazing people you encounter.  My father was enamored with my impressions and stories of you because you were the strangest, most wonderful student I possibly ever had.  I sit here writing this thinking how in the heck I ended up with someone so incredibly individual and fantastic.  I called you Penguin.  Here's why... I remember you coming to my classroom in 6th grade and you were this tiny little Turkish boy.  You had the strangest accent I've ever heard.  Still to this day I am the only one who can mimic you (that I know of) because even your sister had no idea where you got that accent.  You raised your hand in my classroom and asked me, very seriously, "Miss?  Why did the penguins take over Antarctica?"  It was the strangest question I had been asked in middle school (which was saying something).  ...

Today I witnessed my first 7th grade class from 2012, graduating from high school.  This was not my usual Commencement, because these kids were the ones who brought me into the world of teaching middle school.  It was a day that I was sure I would cry and show my emotions on my sleeve.  Surprisingly the sleeve was only unending happiness.  I had no tears to shed for these students moving forward, I had only sunshine running through my veins.  These were kids that I saw at the top of their angst and wonderful teenage development. They were hyperactive and crazy and rude and fantastical like a mythical creature. They made everything difficult for me at the beginning.  They inadvertently tortured me in their own way. However, coming to the end, I realized how much they changed my life and made me the best damn middle school teacher possible. When I started teaching, I was in charge of 10th and 11th grade.  I was then told that I would be transferred to ...

There is a divide in our country at the moment. Actually, there are many divisions, it would seem. There are those who separate our country by race, some by gender, some by sexual orientation, some by political beliefs, some by religion. The list can go on and on, but all of these come down to a simple concept that has been ingrained in our socialization in this country for years and years: “us” versus “them”. At the beginning of our country, it was the American colonists against the British Empire, which sought to unfairly exploit them without giving them any real representation in their political systems. During the Mexican-American War in 1845, it was the American people fighting against the unfair and unjust Mexico. Despite the original confrontation taking place on disputed territory, newspapers across the country cried, “American Blood Spilled On American Soil.” With that, President Polk garnered all the support he needed and we embarked on a war with our Southern neighbors th...

What makes a good person, good?  Is it how they treat their family?  Is it how well they treat people working in the service industry?  Is it their care for animals?  Children? Yes.  To all of these sentiments, all of these could be factors in making you a good person.  Good people treat their loved ones well.  They’re kind to strangers.  They may have a smile for everyone.  They’re the kind of people who see someone drop a $20 bill, and even though they are broke, they run up to return it.  It’s the people who go out of their way to be kind.   I know so many good people.  People I have known for years and years, who I love dearly.  They are good people.  I am surrounded by good people in my life, who have been there for me through thick and thin, as they say.  They have stood by me during the trials and tribulations in my life, but they have also celebrated with me during my personal victories.  We hav...

This year has seen an unprecedented change in the national conversation that has been the hot topic since a certain businessman/reality television star took office.  I found myself in a conversation where two people were appalled at how overtly critical the media and the general populace has been of President Trump after the events in Charlottesville.  I asked them, honestly, did they not remember the angry vitriol that followed President Obama?  They’re response was that it wasn’t ever this bad for him.  Despite watching our president be hung in effigy.  Despite listening to his wife being called a “gorilla” by mainstream media.  Despite hearing multiple arguments about how he’s handled hostages, both paying an exorbitant amount of money, and refusing to spend any money.  How he’s handled healthcare, with only 8.8% of Americans uninsured during the Obamacare administration.  The increase in the national debt, which has nearly doubled in actual d...

When I was 10 or 11 years old, they had a special day in my elementary school.  They came in with a bunch of instruments and gave us the opportunity to hold them, to try to play them, to find our musical calling if there was one there.  That day I picked up a trumpet, felt the cold brass on my lips for the first time, and blew.  Sound immediately came from the horn and the person introducing us to the instruments was left shocked (this was not a normal thing for a kid to pick up an instrument and just start playing it).  I remember being a little bit shocked at my own natural ability with this strange new instrument.  I also seem to recall my mother not being shocked at all.  “Brass is in our blood,” she said.  We had a history of bugle players in my family.   So I started lessons and joined the band.  Every week we would crowd on the front steps of my school and go to the other elementary school down the street and meet with the elementa...