Arm our hearts, not our teachers

By Mario Penalver - Reader columnist
March 6, 2018
"The causes of violence start in the heart, said Seattle's retired Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen, and that is where they must end. And in a society that has a tendency to put its head in the sand (or hand on the trigger) before it ever attempts to reach into its soul, perhaps a change of heart is what we need to arm ourselves with, more than another gun in the hands of our children..."     Read More
​March 6, 2018. This article appears in the Gun Violence feature series. View the full series.
By Mario Penalver
January 6, 2018
​"It isn’t that we agree or disagree with his desire for a less globally dependent country. It’s the simple fact that we — and our president — no longer have a choice, any more than we have a choice to revolve around the sun..."    Read More

Seattle Times Education Lab

March 1, 2015
University of Washington, Seattle- Mario Penalver, a language-arts teacher at Truman Middle School in Tacoma, took a more personal approach with his story. Penalver, who has attention deficit disorder, shared how being labeled at a young age with words like “remedial” and “nuisance” has inspired him to reach out to students who think or act differently from their peers.... Read More.

Tacoma school launches pilot program ​to bring cell phones into classrooms.

Teachers share why they became educators

​Want to hear what five area educators, including TPS' Mario Penalver, give as the reason why they became educators and what's kept them going?... Read More.
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Mario Penalver

Sixth-graders voice wishes and give a little advice

Somewhere between the scribbled lines and eraser marks were the aches of students who just want to be heard. ​​
​By Mario Penalver - Reader columnist
June 15, 2015
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I never thought I’d find the Holy Grail of student success in, of all places, the Trader Joe’s customer service line.
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The posted sign proudly read that employees’ goal was “to provide the highest quality of customer satisfaction delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, fun, individual pride and company spirit..."  Read More.
                                                                          

We Day Tacoma: Empowering youth to make a difference

Tacoma, WA- Making change was the focus for more than 2,000 Tacoma School Public Schools seventh-graders at the We Day Tacoma event held Thursday, Oct. 3, 2013 at Life Center. Students from each of the district’s 10 middle schools converged for a non-traditional school day consisting of performances and powerful messages.. Read More
Family loss makes a young poet reach beyond clichés
By Mario Penalver

Until my senior year of college, I was used to happy endings. My writing was stocked full of them. I wrote of romance, great inspirations, extraordinary leaps of consciousness. There was no room for loss in the rhyme and meter of my poetry... Read More.