About Me
Steve Chisnell (um, on the right) is a teacher at Royal Oak (MI) High School. 
Absurdism 101
Maybe I’m in the mood to vent—but why should I? It’s not like our world is full of the ridiculous, packed with the absurd, stuffed with the ludicrous. It’s not like I can’t make sense of the planet. As I tell me Lit. of the Western World students, existentialists...
Iceland in the Dark, Day Three: 1/20/08
If Iceland were to be pulled apart, it might happen at Þingvellir, the crux of the European and American tectonic plates, the divide of the world. Here Iceland stretches, at the rate of about 1” per year, dropping the bottom of valley about half that distance. Oddly,...
Iceland in the Dark, Day Two: 1/19/08
We left the Blue Lagoon geothermal pools to meet the most vicious wind I have ever encountered. Truly I felt that my cheeks were being carved by ice—we could hide nowhere, find nothing to block it. It sliced through ears and clothes, sealed our nostrils and froze our...
Iceland in the Dark, Day One: 1/18/08
Why Iceland? Why not? The temperature in Reykjavik is just below freezing, but the wind off the North Atlantic coast cuts through however many layers I bury myself in. Were I a typical Icelandic teen, I’d have a simple jacket, perhaps a scarf, but no boots, gloves, or...
Bad Economics: Oil and Schools
This past weekend, oil prices hit $100 per barrel. Undoubtedly, gasoline prices will rise again, too, and the Democratic candidates responded at Saturday’s New Hampshire debates by warning of recession. Even so, the major oil producers of the world don’t seem...
Why I Teach
I’ve been asked often enough what teaching philosophy I hold, what literary criticism, pedagogy, or politics I subscribe to. Recently I’ve been compelled to articulate this philosophy in a short essay for an audience outside of the school. Here is a draft excerpt on...
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