Almost every teacher I know (well, at least the ones who like children) have a “take home” club. These are the kids who you love so much you would take them home in a heartbeat. I had one last year, and I have another couple this year. Let me tell you about one of them.…
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This weekend I was able to help administer tests to incoming scholars in order to determine if they would benefit from extra help during our summer school session. It made me see more than ever that educational inequity is plainly evident and is all around us. The literature says that students in high-need areas come…
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I’m addicted to running. I can’t imagine life without it. However, it is extremely time consuming. Each day I go out for a run that can be anywhere from 1 hour to 2.5 hours. Often, I think about how I could be using that more than 10 hours per week to complete other items on…
read more »Yes, I’m counting the days until the end of the year. Yes, I am all countdown/tested/retesting’d out. The kids are checked out as well. We need to get through the next week and we’re home free. We’ll get to finish our dinosaur unit and start on our physics unit. The kids are looking forward to…
read more »It’s an unfortunately familiar scene in my classroom – one of my students raising their hand, fist balled, ready to land a punch in a dispute over a cup of crayons or the last available tricycle. When you’re caught in a classroom that bounces back and forth between two distinct languages and it’s your first…
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So, of course as part of Teach for America my number one focus is fighting educational inequity, though I can’t help but wonder…what will my students call me? My last name is long, and I mean LONG. It is 15 letters: Mojtabaeezamani (pronounced Moe-ch-ta-by-ee-za-ma-knee). It’s hard for most adults to master, so can I really…
read more »This entire year flew by that I never even updated this blog. Well, after reading my old posts I cannot even believe I came back to Kansas City to teach at the same school in the same grade. I. Loved. almost. Every. Day. This. Year. In three weeks school will be over and I will…
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I thought the couple of months leading up to my acceptance into Teach for America had been nerve-wrecking and hectic. There was the application that I kept reading over and over thinking there was some major typo I was overlooking. Then, there was the phone interview and online activity (I can’t remember which came first,…
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I’ve never been more happy to receive a B. An 86%. 120/140. I remember back to my 10th grade year of high school when I received my first B and was absolutely devastated. It was in a Biology course, and I was convinced the world was ending. Fast forward to college, and the occasional B…
read more »Here’s my favorite adorable kid thing that happened today. We are reading Holes as a class, and my kids LOVE IT. They keep taking it home to read ahead, and even though this is a book about a year above most of their reading levels, they are reading and comprehending it anyway through the sheer…
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