I’ve been tagged by several people to participate in the 8 Random
Things meme. I usually don’t post about personal stuff on this blog, but
given that my last
post opened me up a bit, here goes…

1. Superman : Kryptonite. Me : birthday cake or Dove dark chocolate.
2. I spent four summers working at Camp Nock-A-Mixon, a summer camp for
   wealthy Jewish kids from New York, New Jersey, and Philly, the last three
   supervising five bunks of 6– to 9–year-olds. It was a fantastic experience where
   I learned that even the well-to-do have issues, fell in love with bagels and
   lox, and picked up a little Yiddish.
3. I was the first untenured professor in the University of Minnesota College
   of Education and Human Development to ever win the college’s Distinguished
   Teaching Award. I’m pretty proud of that one.
4. I’m the only member of my immediate family that swims more like a rock than
   a fish.
5. My three favorite books of all time may be Ender’s Game, The Dragonbone
   Chair, and Beyond Discipline:
   From Compliance to Community (the latter should be required reading for
   every educator across the globe). I’ll read anything I can find by Orson Scott
   Card, Tad Williams, Alfie Kohn, Jonathan Kozol, George R.R. Martin, or Richard
   Florida.
6. I think The College of William & Mary might the greatest place in the world to spend your undergraduate years.
7. I’m a big fan of indoors. Outside has allergies, heat, dirt, bugs, etc. If I were a character on Little House on the Prairie, I’d be the sickly kid in the back room that was the shame of my parents and died at age 7.
8. When I was 10 my dad thought it would be cool to buy me a tarantula. I would
   lie awake for hours every night, afraid that if I fell asleep it would get out
   and I would wake up to find it crawling up my chest toward my face.
   Aaahhhhh!

Here are
another 5 random things if you’re interested. Seems like this is a recurring meme. I’ll
look forward to the next one (4 random things? 10 random things?).