About this Blog
Chicago can close the achievement gap.
I’ve been super busy with summer school ending, packing up and cleaning out my classroom, moving, and now interviewing for new jobs while I unpack at my new place. Since I’ve been moving, I’ve been going through older things to get rid of things I don’t need anymore, and I’ve found several papers from throughout…
read more »Since I see the same students every single day, I become accustomed to seeing them and I forget that I teach some of the littlest babies at my school (during the summer, they are the youngest in the school). When I see kids even just one year older (so those students who are going into…
read more »During summer school, I use several curricula that are very different from those that I taught during the school year. One of these curricula is Mondo’s Let’s Talk About It! program. It consists of large photos that are intended to spur conversation among students. We spend one day just talking about the picture and on…
read more »The weekend between school and summer school I went to my parents house to enjoy my two days of break. I drove back on Sunday, again wishing that I’d decided to relax over summer break. The first day of summer school, I dragged myself out of bed and forced myself to eat a granola bar…
read more »Teaching and learning is not a one-way street in my classroom. I have learned at least as much from my students as they learn from me. Here are some of the words that they taught me: Finna: going to, fitting to Ex) “I’m finna tell my mom you said that.” Tweakin’: crazy Ex) “Boy, you…
read more »The end of my first year was not ideal, to say the least. The kids were antsy, I was tired, and we did not get very much done. We were all frustrated with each other, and just waiting for the year to be done. Each day crept by, and every time that I looked at…
read more »The layoffs and class size increases have been approved.
read more »I agreed to teach summer school, so even though most of CPS has 2.5 weeks left, I actually have 8.5 weeks left. After today, I can’t imagine what I was thinking. Please let me survive the week.
read more »Lately I’ve been trying to make sure that I drink a lot of water because it’s been so hot outside. I bought a carton of small water bottles that I keep in my classroom to drink and carry around with me in the school. Recently I was drinking from one of them and put it…
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