or Thomas Joseph Wilson's Blog
I. My drive to become a teacher didn’t quite center on my love for the genre I teach: English Language Arts. I wanted to have a job that impacted the intellectualism of America. This is like, of course, the pinnacle of hippy-dippy idealism, which is definitely my M.O. and my hubris. But becoming an English…
I have recently met 159 people. Teenagers, though they are certainly people too. Maybe even more people than we assume in terms of their digestion and output upon the cultures of the world–mighty yet without perhaps the ability to vote or to drive. These teenagers have, through no real work of mine, been assigned to…
Babies on Planes I am ashamed to say that I used to be rather judgmental if I was seated near a child on an airplane. And if it screamed or kicked my seat, I would dutifully complain about it post-flight. Like I was conferring with those with a similar identity: Child-on-Plane Complainers. “Flight was okay,”…
An English teacher’s renegotiating of our view of the learning and the classroom. In the face of AI–always in the face of AI, we are not allowed to write about something else!–here is an oddity I have been thinking this summer: Humans are DIY-ish. I’m not arguing that humans, from the get-go, develop by putting…
This summer, in lieu of so many complications in education in the 2024-2025 school year, I’m finding myself wanting to be grateful for what I know I have. My job is endlessly fulfilling, and it is only when I care too much that things are in danger of sparking and igniting, an energy-consuming path to…
I wrote a piece about the other side of what writing brings, that other side of control and grammar and communication: noise. Afterward, more evidence of such noise kept coming. And in this age of the AI writer, it makes sense. When things seem so logically together, so effortless, we are drawn to the opposite….
I have attempted to get through this essay without mentioning the reason why I am writing it. I won’t have to. You’ll know. A Rediscovery of a Book Before the pandemic, I lent my copy of The New Analog by Damon Krukowski to a friend. A couple weeks ago, he gave it back. Though it’s been five…
What can teachers really accomplish with the class sizes of today? Efficiency-Minded It took me a long time to finish my last piece of writing (“On Teacher Exhaustion”). It was difficult to really communicate what kind of exhaustion is hitting ELA teachers in 2025 without seeming like I’m outright kvetching or lamenting nebulous “good ‘ole…
How do teachers let go of a new and consequential thing we can’t control? The Profession Most teachers get the opportunity to teach their own generation at the beginning of their careers. I remember it being an exciting moment, as if I had come back to save my fellow Millennials from the obliviousness of Gen…
I have been doing a lot of listening to Huey Lewis and the News lately. It’s not just that they are a great band or because I’ve always loved “The Power of Love” and “If This Is It.” And it’s not because the songs of Huey Lewis and the News and my own human body…