Teachers are constantly pushing. Pushing students to write better. Pushing them to read more challenging materials. Pushing them to make better arguments. Pushing them to practice their music. Then, when students master the task at hand, teachers find something else to improve. It’s implicit in the job. This constant drive to grow and be better [...]
The F Word: Feminism in 2020 I’ll never forget the moment I explained feminism to a freshman boy. In my first year of teaching, a precocious student asked me why I used “Ms.” in my name. My partner and I are committed to each other without the institution of marriage and childless by choice. But, [...]
Before the school year began, I decided to resign as a teacher due to living in a pandemic riddled world. I made my prayerful decision based on my health concerns and that of my husband. No way would I risk exposing either of us to COVID-19 by entering a Petri dish environment of my classroom [...]
Accountability and Empathy: Where's the Balance? Pandemic Adjustments I went into this year knowing online learning would be tough. I zoomed in with my equity lens and kept it sharply focused, ready to make adjustments wherever necessary to meet students’ needs. 2020 has been a stressful time for all of us and my students are [...]
I try to teach my students that language has power. There are many unfortunate classroom moments when teenagers colloquially use words they shouldn’t. Often, after saying something derogatory, students will immediately look at me and explain. “Oh, I don’t mean it like that” or “It’s just a joke.” Most of the time, I do know [...]