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Last year at this time there were days when I was almost brought to tears during class by how mean my students were to each other or how unable I was to get any of my students to stop talking for long enough to listen to me. Today I was literally brought to tears by my perfectly behaved class who was disinterested in what we were doing. We had a discussion in their disinterest that resulted in my students explaining to me that they did not see the value in what we were discussing in class. I feel so incredibly passionate about what we are doing and learning in class day in and day out that the fact that a few perfectly behaved kids did not see its value brought me to tears.
A lot can change in a year.
The title of this post comes from a book that my team teacher often mentions. I have not read it, but I feel the title applies to what I have been noticing in my classroom and feeling recently. I have really been pushing my kids this year. When I was teaching math, I did not…
read more »Everyone knows my feelings about TFA, but some days I do feel like I am here doing at least a tiny little bit of good for a very few of my students. We were discussing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in class the other day as part of a Hunger Games based conversation about whether or not…
read more »For anyone who talks to me on a regular basis, it will come as no surprise that I have spent a large part of this year and probably way too much time grappling with TFA, its mission, my role, and pretty much everything I could. I came to the conclusion not long after entering the…
read more »Today after school I was sitting in my classroom doing a little bit of work. It was the last day of the nine weeks today, so a lot of kids have been worried about what grade is going to be on their report card. Unfortunately, some of the kids who need to be worried aren’t,…
read more »Another blog post so soon. I know. Crazy. So one of my students asked me today why I have been in such a bad mood lately. And why I have been so mean. After thinking about it for a while, I decided to give an honest to god put it all out there answer. I…
read more »Sorry for the really terrible metaphor title for this post. I am no English teacher after all. I haven’t written in a really long time. If I have any faithful readers, I apologize. I have been waiting for the right mood. Not necessarily the best or worst mood, but the mood where I feel most…
read more »I was warned about the month of October. I have also been planning on posting for a while now, but my mood has been so up and down since my last post that I haven’t been able to decide what to write about and what the mood of my post will be. So I decided…
read more »I have had some bad days recently. Really bad ones. I had to have a girl taken out of my room because she was causing such a huge scene yelling about how she hates this school, hates the teachers, doesn’t care if she get’s written up and on and on and on. That afternoon, I…
read more »Normally when I hear people say the phrase “but I do love the kids” it is following a whole lot of complaining about the school, the job, the administration, TFA, and whatever else you can imagine. I am guilty of doing that myself. But putting everything else aside, I LOVE the kids. Love them. Today,…
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