Whatever Flips Your Waffle - Mark Domeier
As has been my wont over the past few summers, I’m taking some time off from pontificating to write some fiction. I asked my 8th graders to provide me first and last lines for potential stories, and it’s my job to fill in the middle. I hope you enjoy! This week’s inspiration comes from Aubrey...
I’ve preached for years to my students that if they have someone else read their paper out loud to them, they will find many of the mistakes they miss prior to turning it in. The idea is that the other person might pause when reading if they are confused. They might pause when they encounter...
I subscribe to the 1440 email newsletter. Every day it gives an unbiased look at the news of the day, simply telling the reader what occurred the day before, no bias included. I highly recommend it.
Along with the daily email, the 1440 has a weekly distribution about society and culture....
Remember during the pandemic when we taught and learned online? Shudder. There were a few positives from it, things that opened up possibilities in many businesses. But overall, we can look back and recognize that learning that way is not optimal.
Many businesses, including state workers, are...
Jayna Domeier graduated from Winona State on May 9, 2025 with a Bachelor’s degree in Music Education. From left the Domeier family: Mark, Jayna, Michelle and Anton.
(Please allow me a bit of a parental indulgence this week. I’ll put on my journalistic writing shoes for the column, but this dad is bursting with pride!)
When Jayna Domeier graduated from NRHEG in 2020, in the midst of a pandemic, she was recognized as co-valedictorian and was proud of her 4.0...
When I started my teaching career, I joined my local teaching union, which is connected to our state union, which is connected to our national union. I didn’t understand what that all meant and wasn’t sure what it all involved outside of getting dues taken out of my check every month. I was just...
I listened to an audiobook called “I See You Called in Dead” recently. It’s about an obituary writer who gets drunk one night, writes his own obituary, and publishes it. The results of being “dead” shake up his life; it’s a really good book!
In one scene, the main character is walking through a...
We were reading some stories in class recently about iconic athletes from the past and the work they had to put in to become the very best in their sports. Many of the names are not familiar to most people: Babe Didrickson, Gertrude Ederle, and Gretel Bergmann among others. All three of these...
During the season of Lent, we don’t eat meat on Fridays. There are a lot of good alternatives to using meat: tuna melts, grilled cheese and tomato soup, and fish fillets among many other choices.
On one Friday this past month, Michelle and I had diverging schedules, and she had eaten before I...
I was watching a show recently, and one of the characters was reciting lines from a Shakespearean play. Another character asked if he knew that whole section by heart, which he did.
Suddenly, I sat up. Wait. Why do we say we know something by heart? Don’t we actually know it by brain? Our heart...