7th Grader: “Is that phone a 3G or a 4G?” Me: “It’s a zero-G.” 7: “Are you serious!?!” My kids are always concerned about my lack of coolness and technology. They normally look at me with a mix pitying looks and judgement when they see my old phone, but I think I completely blew their…

At some point during the year I stopped posting. (You can look at the date for yourself.) Life is crazy and maybe I need to be on here to reflect more… but I am currently on Spring Break at my parent’s house in the rural South. I’ve been going back and forth with myself about…

After Pro-Sat this weekend I spent some time tutoring a former student who is now at a new high school at a coffee shop in Detroit. Somewhere in between hot chocolate, peppermint tea, and dihybrid crosses I remembered why I am a teacher despite all of the struggles of the past two years. When I…

Reading about the struggles and worries in my students’ lives is heartbreaking. Reading about their dreams and goals is inspiring.  

Whiteboard love messages… the day my kiddos found out the school was closing (and it was their last day). From a new 9th grader who used to get into fights at his old school and whose mother said this was the first place that he actually looked forward to going to school. … I am…

So… I don’t have time for a real update… or anything for that matter, but my school has gone through significant changes recently. I am a middle school science teacher again. I had to say goodbye to the high schoolers that I was so excited to teach for the 2nd year in a row. And…

Today my 9th grade boys asked me who I would vote for, and we proceeded to have a brief conversation about politics, race (“Mama, I hear Republicans hate black people.” They were interested to hear that there are several African-American leaders in the Republican party), and the importance of doing research on the policies to…

How do you let them go when you have only just met them and they write this on their do now: “Probably in five years I see myself playing college football. I don’t know what college I’m going to play for. But I see myself doing positive things for my life. But in back in…

Grading diagnostics can be really overwhelming. It really helps put the amount of work I have to do into perspective. Yes, I am speaking of the general science skills variety of test, not the do this complicated chemistry problem you have never seen before type of test. In other news… I have planning periods!!!! 5…

So I have made it through the first 3 days of school. The feeling is much different returning than starting a new career in a new school as I did last year. At the same time it is still stressful… especially without any planning periods. (This will hopefully change by Monday…)  Today definitely had stressful…

I think today I was officially convinced to keep an offline blog (diary of sorts?) and then post it at the end of of my TFA/ teaching term. I will call it The Hidden Chronicles. And maybe charge because it will have some amazing stuff in it.

Please remind me, in the middle of the year when they drive me crazy, that I am really excited to have the boys advisory group that I was assigned and that I think they are some awesome young scholars. Even though I didn’t have an advisory for most of last year due to my busy…

No offense TFA, but tomorrow when I have to come back for our First 8 Weeks kick-off I would much rather be at puppy play day. You see, my puppy has just decided that she actually wants to play with other puppies (after kind-of watching for 3 weekly sessions). And I think she’s pretty darn…

Summer is almost over. I soon will be heading back to work. More TFA sessions, more professional development, my 2nd year of teaching. I’m not going to lie. I’m a little unmotivated, but hopefully that will change as I am starting to feel like it’s game time. Reflecting, the favorite TFA thing to do, on…

Apparently I miss the running around, lack of sleep, and always being a step ahead of your kiddos part of teaching because I decided to come home from visiting my relatives with a puppy. We are working on following directions quickly.

I’m still not quite ready to reflect on my year… so I’ll let my kiddos do the talking for me. I gave all 3 grades an end of the year survey. I have included some of the more entertaining or awesome or sweet responses… both good and bad. Overall I was encouraged with the positive…

My first year of teaching is over! (Well, it ended Thursday.) Give me a few more days of being truly reflective on a truly transformational year and I will relentlessly pursue updating you soon. Long story short… I’m in a much better place than I was at the beginning, and even middle of, the year.…

During my 9th grade girls biology class the subject came up as to whether or not I would be at my school next year. In response, I said “Yes, I will be here next year.” This was followed up with a “you for sure have a job here next year?!” (said by one of my…

My middle-schoolers coming to me and proudly showing off their DUKE snapbacks will never fail to make me smile.

Today I found another note on my floor… this one was at least better than the last one I blogged about (see: racial tensions/ death threat). I’m pretty sure it was meant to be an insult because my lovely 7th graders complained about “doing too much” work in class lately… but I smiled when I…

There is no typical day in the life of a teacher. I still find time to work until I pass out from exhaustion around 2 am some evenings (mornings?). Tomorrow I have professional development and right now I don’t want to do anything so here is a sometimes-typical day. 5:30am– Alarm goes off 6:02am– Actually…

So… my students know I am a Duke fan. I sometimes include Duke sports teams in examples. When the occasional student asks why I like Duke so much, several other students are quick to emphatically reply, “Umm… because she went there!!”  They also know I had two brackets with my school (another teacher organized it…

So I had one of those “this is why I Teach For America” moments today/yesterday. Yesterday I gave my 9th grade biology classes a full-length practice ACT Science Reasoning section. Now, some of them freaked out a little bit on me… this is 11th grade work after all!  I asked them to jot down a…

I pulled aside one of my 8th grade boys for playing in the lunch room in front of me. Mid-conversation about responsible choices he blurts out, “Mama, I didn’t know Austin Rivers was Doc Rivers’ son! I like him a lot more now!” It was a valiant attempt to get out of trouble and change…