Time really did fly after Spring Break. It still seems surreal that an entire year of teaching has gone by. Just a year ago I was headed to Tulsa like the 2013s are to teach summer school, and now I'm dusting off the final pieces of my first year of teaching as I put the… Continue reading And So Ends the First Year…
Category: TFA
Rejecting the Single Story
A week and a half ago I stood in front of my students and unfolded a story. I narrated to them about the 'single story' people have about students in intensive reading classes. I described my introduction during ETO (district) training and how low the stories in our Edge book curriculum were. I told them… Continue reading Rejecting the Single Story
A Pause to Reflect During Teacher Appreciation Week
Every day isn't going to be perfect. In fact, many days won't be and we'll limp out of the building at 2:20 as if we'd just been through battle. Then there are the neutral days where things were good, learning happened, and behavior was fine. But we live for those days that are the diamonds… Continue reading A Pause to Reflect During Teacher Appreciation Week
Why the Threat of Violence is as Strong as Violence Itself
If you google 'how fear works' you will get some links as your first hit, describing fear as a chemical reaction in the brain that starts with a stress stimulus and leads to a racing heart, fast breathing, fight-or-flight responses, and so on and so forth. But anyone who has experienced fear, especially those who… Continue reading Why the Threat of Violence is as Strong as Violence Itself
Real Talk
"When Kepler found his long-cherished belief did not agree with the most precise observation, he accepted the uncomfortable fact. He preferred the hard truth to his dearest illusions." -Carl Sagan One of the harder realities of teaching the lowest performing students (as measured by the district) in the Reading Department is that many of… Continue reading Real Talk
The Parent Promise
Every teacher goes to their fair share of parent/teacher conferences. There are those that are very in and out, and then there are those that feel like they gut you. They are the ones that you sit or stand there and know that if something doesn't change with this child their road might end soon.… Continue reading The Parent Promise
How to Survive Those First 9 Weeks
Here I am on my bed, still in my work clothes from the day, with my hair in a messy ponytail, having just finished inputting and verifying all my grades for the first 9 weeks of the school year. And even my worn down state of sickness brought on in part by playing a little… Continue reading How to Survive Those First 9 Weeks
“The Art of Making Possible”
Earth could be fair. And you and I must be free Not to save the world in a glorious crusade Not to kill ourselves with a nameless gnawing pain But to practice with all the skill of our being The art of making possible. -Nancy Scheibner October has a reputation for being the bottom of… Continue reading “The Art of Making Possible”
When You Need it the Most
It is our choices ... that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities. - J. K. Rowling (Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets) Some weeks feel especially long. However, even though my body feels worn down and the constant chilliness in my cold has brought on a persistent sniffly nose, I… Continue reading When You Need it the Most
Wading Through the Smog
She's a Dreamer. A Thinker. A Doer. She Sees Possibility Everywhere. Freshmen are a tough group of students. I don't think I could start this post out with any other sentence than that one. But when I type that, there is so much more that I mean than just the fact that my ninth graders… Continue reading Wading Through the Smog
Odelia Younge 