This book started with a question. The question appeared one morning, seemingly out of nowhere, as I was getting ready for my day. I was …
Lessons: Introduction
LESSONS: The Book
Pre-K3: How to Fight Back
When I was three years old, I punched a kid. It was the first and last punch that I ever threw. Here’s how it went …
Pre-K4: How to Build an Audience
You know how when kids are very little, adults tell them that pretty much everything they do is amazing? They take one step, it’s amazing. …
Kindergarten: How to Disagree
This kindergarten lesson began like any other. My teacher, Mrs. M, called the class to the cornflower blue carpet. We gathered around its perimeter, sat …
First Grade: How to Spell José
In first grade with Mrs. H, we got to write our own fiction stories, beginning to middle to end. We worked hard on them. I …
Second Grade: How to Paint with Toothpicks
At some point during second grade, somewhere between RJ and Alan, my best friend was Steven. (I had a lot of best friends that year. …
Third Grade: How to be Poor (on Scholastic Book Day)
In third grade, we all got a copy of The Scholastic Book Catalog. This was a very big deal. Let me try to explain why. …
Fourth Grade: How to Sink your Small Business
In my younger years, I was a cartoonist. Every night, after dinner, I would sharpen a few pencils and grab a stack of long, 8×14 …
Dismissal: How to Survive an Accident
To understand this story, you need to understand the layout of my elementary school. Which is pretty easy to understand: the school was a single, …
Fifth Grade: How Not to Decorate a Sugar Cookie
Fifth grade was the last year of elementary school. Which meant fifth grade was my last chance to win The Annual Sugar Cookie Decorating Contest. …