Welcome to our series, Daily Diaries, where we follow Castilleja teachers through a day in their lives. Today’s teacher is Matt Callahan, Upper School English teacher and the faculty advisor of Counterpoint. Below, as outlined to us by Callahan, is his daily routine.
5 a.m. – Wake-up: I’m back to trying to get up early and grade in the early mornings. This is week two after football ended. I really like it, but it means I’m really tired at night.
5:10 – Bread in the oven: Today’s is pecan and cherry sourdough. It’s been proofing overnight, so it’s all good to go.
5:15 – Coffee: We’ve been buying Verve lately; today is Seabright. Weird but true: we buy two kilograms of coffee about every other week. We go through a lot of coffee around here.
5:20 – Rowan wakes up: His hand and his foot hurt. He has a fever. He says, “I think my head is going to fall off.” Poor guy.
Grading: ATAV this morning. These Centos are really, really good!
7:00 – Breakfast: Eggs and toast and yogurt with granola.
7:40 – Bike Hadley to school: We ride to school every morning. Most mornings, we listen to our playlist. This morning, it’s Rainbow Kitten Surprise and Olivia Rodrigo. The whole commute takes less than 10 minutes.
8:00 – Bike to school: From Nixon Elementary, I bike to Casti through Stanford’s campus. It usually takes about seven minutes total, but there is a lot of construction today and with the rain, it takes about eight minutes.
8:30 – English II: We’re in our poetry unit, discussing narrative poetry, and we’re reading “Allowables” by Nikki Giovanni, alongside “Mercy” by Rudy Francisco. Students received their video essays this morning. We then ate some bread with butter and jam, and now they’re explicating the poems in small groups.
9:55 – Observation: I am observing everyone in the English department. So today, I sat in a class. I take notes on everything I see: who is participating, who appears engaged, what kinds of questions are being asked and who is answering those questions. Then I meet with every teacher to reflect and celebrate them as part of my role as the department lead.
11:00 – Home to be with Rowan: I have to miss advisory today to be with Rowan while my wife has paper meetings (she teaches in a program called SLE). Lunch with Rowan, playing with Magna-Tiles and drawing letters. He is learning his letters and makes these incomprehensible notes covered in letters as “presents” for us. It’s very fun.
1:00 – AT American Voices (ATAV) team meeting: Grade norming looking across sections. In our team meetings, we do a variety of things, but today we were looking at one assignment across our sections. We talk through how we assess writing individually and try to better align across the sections. With three teachers, this is really important! While we sometimes disagree, it’s incredible to realize that we are very close in terms of our grading practices, even if our approaches are sometimes different. We are all within a couple of percentage points of each other. Today, we decide to adjust our rubric on the poetry explication to better capture what we’re looking for and to try to catch students doing close reading more accurately (and generously).
2:10 – ATAV: My period four class is on chapter three–when Nick first goes to Gatsby’s house for a party and meets him for the first time. We spend much of the class discussing how setting reveals themes of the novel: facades, old money versus new money and perception. We have one excellent question about old money status and why they feel threatened by the emerging new class–isn’t money just about protecting money? We then spend some time looking at Nick and Jordan’s relationship. (Who, for example, is the girl with the “faint mustache of perspiration?” And why leave this ambiguous?)
3:15 – Meet with students: Two students stay after class–one to discuss an extended metaphor in chapter three, what does it mean? Why is there a tide-based image here of girls who wash in and out of social circles at Gatsby’s mansion? Another student wants to discuss her Scholastic contest submissions.
4:00 – Allergy shot and grade an essay: I’m working my way up to my maintenance dose. Instead of scrolling on my phone while I’m waiting to see if I have a bad reaction, I grade one more piece of student work.
4:45 – Work out and read “Grendel”: I’m fortunate to have a bike trainer in my office at home. It’s an easy day, so I can read while working out. Today, I’m reviewing John Gardner’s “Grendel” for my Monsters course. I get through about four chapters.
6:30 – Meet Fiona and Candy! I show you around SLE, and you see some student leaders at the staff meeting. I explain being an RF (Resident Fellow) of this part of the dorm. Kelby (our Labrador/Ridgeback elderly canine) escapes, and they find her in another dorm. You see Hadley play the piano, play her billiards game, Rowan has an accident, a flexibility contest ensues, awkward photo encounter (that kneeling was very funny).
7:25 – Kelby escapes again! Some students find her on the field next to our place.
7:30 – Dinner from the dining hall: Tonight is teriyaki chicken and rice. Actually, it’s really good! (Not always the case, but thankful to have food here at the ready!)
8:30 – Read to Rowan: Tonight is “Monkey with a Toolbelt Blasts Off.” It’s part of the Chico Bon Bon universe. I nod off vigorously while reading.
8:45 – Read to Hadley: I sit in a chair this time to better stay awake. We are about halfway through “City of Ember.” We are really enjoying it! Hadley is asking some really good questions.
9:00 – Send some emails. Relax. TV time.
9:30 – Read “A Monster Calls” by Patrick Ness. Then fall asleep!
Through this Daily Diary, we saw another side of Callahan’s life. Whether it is biking Hadley to school, teaching Rowan his letters, grading papers or being an RF at Stanford, Callahan brings his authentic self to everything he does. While he showed us around the Stanford dorm, he shared the ups, downs, conveniences and inconveniences of his experience living and raising a family there. We gained more insight into how his parenting and teaching styles intersect, saw his interactions with other Stanford staff members and students and even experienced Hadley’s exciting billiards game. Overall, we had a lot of fun taking a small step into Callahan’s world.
