About this Blog
a Teach For America teacher’s blog
There are about 7 weeks left to the school year. To me it seems as if it’s a lifetime. I am exhausted. I have given all of me to my kids. I love them, and because I love them I feel inadequate. I find myself staring into the face of a beast that is the achievement gap- and no matter how many times I have taken up my armor and attempted to slay this beast, I have failed. The beast is still out there but I have created a refuge for my students. They can enter my classroom and find love, care, adventure, and a challenge.
I stand in front of my classroom and look out into the crowd of students at their desks and I see art. My students are sitting. My students are thinking. They are not yelling or throwing things across the room. They are not sleeping face…
Its been eleven days since I was in my classroom. The summer ended perfectly and my kids improved so much. I had them write letters to themselves and I am going to mail them out in October, most wrote about how they want to be in high school and focused so that they don’t have…
read more »My entry from Wednesday: (In the morning) So…I’m going to take a risk and try something new in my classroom. I am going to make stations for review. Yesterday, I had students circle objectives we have gone over that they do not feel comfortable with. I took the top 4 and made a review booklet…
read more »The last week of institute. This time next week I will be in Miami, hopefully sleeping (its 5am now). These weeks have flown by. While some of my peers are running down the hall and literally yelling “I HATE INSTITUTE!!!!AHHHH!!!!” I cant say I share their sentiment. I jokingly yelled back, “Well I love institute!”…
read more »Today I think was the point where I couldnt hold it in anymore. After class was dismissed my Summer mentor teacher (SMT) came in to talk to me. Midway through our debrief, she asked me what was wrong because I looked like I was down. At first I lied, I told her that my region…
read more »Im sitting here during my planning period realizing that I have run out of time. Summer school officially ended last friday but we are lying to our kids and telling them that school does not ket our until July 16. Ethical? Who knows, but what I do know is that they are only here two…
read more »This is what I started to write last weekend on Saturday but never finished: Man, I really miss my kids. Is that weird? I wonder what they are up to. Are they safe? Yesterday was so great. I was sad in the morning because I felt like I failed my kids but that just means…
read more »Ahhhhh! Just got out of my class. I wanna pack up my bad ass students and put them in my suitcase to come to Miami! I looooove them. Today was so good. Like amazing. I was blown away. I already know that they are smart. I was blown away with how much they have become…
read more »Today was rough… After I dismissed my kids, I literally just sat at a desk and didn’t know whether to cry or laugh. I failed my kids today. They are amazing, don’t me wrong, but today was a failure because I didn’t have my shit together. Last night I barely got sleep trying to do…
read more »Day two was rough, but better. One of my kids broke my heart today. At breakfast I saw him with his head down so I sat next to him. He looked up and told me “Miss, I had a really hard night last night…” I asked him if he wanted to talk about it and…
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