Jessica Arl is currently a long-term substitute teacher in our school. She student taught with me in the Spring of 2016 and graduated in December 2016 with a certificate to teach English in grades 6-12 from the University of Illinois at Chicago. This is post five …
Gabbi McArtor is in her first year teaching. She student taught with me in the Spring of 2015 and graduated in May 2016 with a certificate to teach K-8 from Illinois State University. This is post four of six in a series about student teaching, mentoring, and …
Amy Estanislao is a teacher in Chicago Public Schools. She student taught with me in the Spring of 2014 and graduated in May 2015 with a certificate to teach 6-12 from the University of Illinois at Chicago. This is post three of six in a series …
Madeline LaLonde is in her fourth year of teaching as a fourth grade teacher in Geneva, Illinois. She taught with me in the Fall of 2012 and graduated in May 2013 with a certificate to teach K-8 from Illinois State University. This is post two …
Over blueberry pancakes and coffee on Saturday morning, my husband, Dan, interrupts my weekly recap of teaching to say, “Have you ever heard of the coaching tree? You are talking about the teaching tree.” I was talking about lesson planning with my student teacher. What …
Over the summer I asked my dear Facebook teacher friends for advice about how best to maintain a classroom library (see part 1 and part 2). I learned a lot from teachers who had developed great systems with minimal loss at the end of school …
“Hey, Isa! Isa!” I call as I ride the wave of students heading to their lockers before school. Finally, she turns and stops at the next break. “Good morning. I missed you yesterday and thought we could work on your speech for today. Maybe you …
Leo “I can’t stay after school. I gotta pick up my little brother,” Leo says as he comes in at lunch to do a reading assignment. (All names are pseudonyms.) “I understand, but you missed a week of school, and if you can just stay …
For this blog, I offer 11 stories of immigration alongside student voices to make visible the sort of thinking teens are doing about immigration and the social forces that impact lives around the globe. How these books imagine America have everything to do with how our students imagine their world — what it is and what it ought to be.
It is incredibly humbling to look, really look at oneself from the angles other show you, but I see it as protection from shattering, from falling apart. When I am willing to look carefully at all the angles, I can make adjustments to heal, to improve, and to make a change if needed.