April Coker, Author

Category: teaching

  • Why I’m Happy School is Starting Again

    Ah, back-to-school time.  That season of the year when store shelves are brimming with shiny new pens, markers, notebooks, and lunch boxes, and clothing racks are stuffed with fashions for going back to school.  Parents groan because of the expense of equipping the kids with everything required for the new school year–but those shoes fit…

  • Not quite ready to die. . .not just yet!

    A student once asked me if I wanted to die. “Pardon me?”  I looked up from my desk where I was grading papers to see him standing in front of me. “Do you want to die?” he repeated. “Is that a threat or a rhetorical question?” “I’m just asking because you’re older and you couldn’t…

  • Out of the blue. . .

    I’m minding my own business, doing my weekly grocery, etc. shopping at our hometown big box discount store.  I pass the sporting goods department where my husband is perusing hunting supplies when I meet a nice-looking man who nods and says hello.  Thinking he is more friendly than most, I nod and say hello and…

  • Small Town, Big Impact

    “Everybody dies famous in a small town,” sings Miranda Lambert in her hit tune.  Small towns dot the landscape of Texas and every other state, and rarely get the attention they deserve.  You won’t hear names like Van, Lindale, Mineola, Gladewater, Big Sandy, Mabank, etc. as often as you hear Dallas, Houston, and Austin, but…

  • Please forgive me, Neil. . .

    When I was working full-time, it always seemed that getting up and going on Tuesday was much harder than it was on Monday.  Maybe it was because the adrenaline required to get everybody to school and me back to work had run out by Tuesday?  I don’t know.  What I do know is that tomorrow…