I never found school boring when I was in high school. Challenging and frustrating? Yes, but never boring. So it always comes as a bit of a shock to me when students tell me how boring they find their high school classes today. The interesting thing about boring, of course, is that boring tends to […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
We Teach Children, Not Curriculum
What happens when you feel more committed to the curriculum than the kids you teach? I’ve been thinking about this lately. It is my 11th year teaching, but it is my first time feeling immense pressure to keep up to a curriculum pacing calendar. For those who don’t know, a pacing calendar is a tool […]
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Why Chick-fil-A Matters in my Classroom.
It was Christmas dinner 2017, and the talk was of a new (and only) Chick-fil-A opening in our central New York area. My family endorsed the taste of their remarkable chicken and delicious drinks. Discussions of their charity and fundraisers abounded. As I listened to the conversations, I felt myself grow smaller. It was like […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
December 2019: Teacher Self-Care Calendar
To download the PDF, click here December2019.
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
[Opinion]I’m Tired: The Cultural Burden of a Being the Token Assistant Principal
“White people can be exhausting.” That’s the first line in Austin Channing Brown’s book titled, I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness. While this line is most likely jarring for some, I must say, as an African-American woman in a space of Whiteness as an Assistant Principal, it is true. Embarking […]
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“Why haven’t I learned that Harriet Tubman fought in the civil war?”
On a cold day in central New York, I had the fantastic opportunity to take 26 students to tour the Harriet Tubman National Park, located in Auburn, NY. After an enlightening hour, we loaded onto the yellow submarine (aka the school bus) and watched the movie Harriet at the local Movie Tavern. By the end of the […]
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What Becoming a Math Teacher Leader Taught Me
Becoming a math teacher leader was never really on my radar. When I first started teaching math, I taught the way I was taught or how the textbook presented topics. Many of my students struggled with this method of teaching, so I looked for alternatives. When opportunities for professional development in math arose, I signed […]
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Valuable Lessons from an Extremely Bad Professional Development
You know that something has gone wrong in a professional workshop when the experience starts to feel disrespectful. I sat in a workshop today from 9 am to 3 pm about a new math curricular resource. Approximately an hour and a half into the workshop, I started to feel pretty angry, because the training was […]