"Why read when you can watch the movie?" In my eight years as an educator, no other sentiment has been quite so crushing to hear from children.

Like many of my students, I too use digital devices in my daily personal life, but the enormous piles of notes and paper combined with the constant fighting with the students to put their gadgets away drove me to reevaluate how I could use those very gadgets to my advantage.

At McKenzie Towne School in Alberta, students are learning through touch, scent, and sound with the Indigenous Sensory Box Project.

I see sleepy kids every day in my 8th grade English class. Their heads are drooping. Their eyes are barely open. Their energy is low.

Many substitute teachers like me can teach a different grade every single day, from K–12. It can be challenging, to say the least.

I avidly recall a second grade class that would excitedly huddle around my rocking chair for story time. Students scrambled around sliding chairs to the carpet where I read heartwarming and sometimes zany tales, they reminded me that story time was counted among the most meaningful and cherished moments of a child’s day. Story time is a child’s portal into endless worlds, kingdoms, and dimensions.

Students often display a morbid curiosity that I feel I cannot ignore, but can I lean into it? Can I use this fascination in a way that engages students, but also humanizes them?

The height of the pandemic brought many moments of upheaval and uncertainty, but amidst the tensions, there were also moments of laughter.

Getting kids to write in this day and age, where entertainment is merely a swipe away, can be like asking them to eat their vegetables.