David McGrath: The Christmas gift every teacher craves
If teaching were baseball, I would have been sent back to the minors after my first year at Chicago Vocational High School. A 22-year-old English major, I could diagram a...
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David McGrath: I give thanks for these fine Americans
Is anyone surprised that at least one poll this year, by statistics database Statista, found that Americans' favorite holiday is Thanksgiving? Expressing thanks, after all, makes everyone feel good. In...
David McGrath: A family get-together resurrects friendly ghosts from my Evergreen Park past
Halloween originated with the ancient Celts of western Europe as a celebration of ghosts and spirits in acknowledgment of and hope for an afterlife. Which is all well and good,...
David McGrath: My experiences with my kind and bigoted neighbor reveal an American paradox
When a relative, friend or colleague dies, you regret that you canceled a lunch date with them or never made the phone call you had intended but kept putting off....
David McGrath: I loved being a Chicago teacher, even with the brawls. But it’s so much worse for educators now.
Like a lot of teachers, I began as a substitute for Chicago Public Schools, making $40 a day filling in for faculty members who called in sick. As a 22-year-old...
McGrath: Wisconsin trip provides small respite from the heat — and food for thought about climate change
When the wolf is outside your door day and night, it wears on you physically and mentally. Our son lives in Phoenix, and that's more or less how he characterized...
David McGrath: A sports fan turns to technology to get his TV fix
One Sunday morning while taking a breather from raking leaves at my grandma's house in Evergreen Park, I watched my Uncle Eddie, her son, kneeling on their slippery roof in...
David McGrath: On the cusp of turning 13, I learned that America is the land of the free only for some
America, land of the free.* But why the asterisk? I learned the reason at the end of seventh grade. It was a summer evening in Evergreen Park, so I could...
David McGrath: A father’s emotional roadblock to ‘I love you’
"I love you, Dad," Janet said. She is the younger of my two daughters, and we were exchanging goodbyes at the end of a phone conversation. "Me, too, honey." "Me,...
David McGrath: Mom was more of a dive bomber than a helicopter parent
For once, I felt like the "big man on campus." I had just received a letter in the mail saying I had made the dean's list. That evening, I learned...