by Jennifer M. Sierra I’ve never been a “lunch bunch” kind of teacher. I’ve spent most of my career teaching high school—mostly juniors, a few sophomores, a few seniors. Even now, in my fourth year of teaching middle school, the concept of a lunch bunch is still way too elementary for me. Additionally, it’s [...]
My hands were shaking as the bell rang for the first day of the 2020-2021 school year. I know it sounds cliche to say that my hands were shaking. Everyone writes that their hands were shaking to indicate nervousness but I’m not being hyperbolic when I say that my hands were literally shaking so hard [...]
In the beginning ... On this particular day in my classroom, you would have found a service dog standing faithfully by their owner as she explained how her dog detected her insulin levels. Or you might notice a laptop flashing intricate patterns of code while a robot zoomed up to you carrying a piece of [...]
Mentoring. Recently, several articles have appeared suggested mentoring may be a way to help with the academic loss that educators are calling the “covid slide”. That’s abuzz too, and for good reason. But I’m just as concerned, if not more so, about Natasha, who even in class is so incredibly shy that she can barely [...]
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 [...]