I am beyond pleased, ecstatic, [insert any other word that expresses feelings of the utmost JOY] to share that I interviewed at Leadership Prep Brownsville this morning and will be joining their team this fall.  My sample teach was incredibly fun and I was so thrilled to share the company with the most well behaved…

So I’m scared of my principal. Ok, maybe scared isn’t the right word. But I am intimidated by her. She has a presence– standing  with perfect posture much taller than myself, with coordinating jewelry, nails and heels, make-up applied, every hair in place. I have never heard her yell, but she could do more with…

Never, under any circumstances, give a middle schooler a piece of paper without knowing a)where they should put it RIGHT NOW, b) where they should return it. Ask parents if they receive texts.   Be obsessive about formatting. If you don’t put a space for student names, they will develop a secret code, nicknames, or…

There is a lot of work involved in getting ready to join the corps!   I am so excited to have already accomplished: registering for my NYS Certification exams; starting the Violence and Child Abuse workshops; preparing for my demo lesson at a phenomenal charter school in Brooklyn this Friday.   Gearing up for all…

After thinking that I might not post again this semester, here I am writing just a few days later. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what I have learned from the TFA experience. It’s a question that is going to come up in job/school interviews and casual conversations for the next several years, I…

I don’t want to talk about the awful mess of crud that made me sad today. So instead let me tell you about the spectacularly subpar aerobics class I went to Monday. So this was at the gym in Gallup, which is totally decent. There’s some weights and some cardio equipment and way around the…

Welcome to my blog, the Tiny Teacher! I am currently a full time staff member at Teach For America and will begin teaching in Fall 2013 in New York City.   Hopefully, I will have lots of amazing and riveting things to say in this blog.  At any rate, I am so excited to meet…

I’m a bit embarrassed that my last post was after the first week of school in August.  At the same time, here I am after the first week of school in January, and I could stop after this and feel content with the symmetry.  That’s not the plan, but it’s an option. To sum up…

It’s amazing how well-behaved and friendly students can be after a long winter break. Though I’d like to think they missed me terribly, it probably had more to do with the fact that I brought in a huge tray of my grandma’s leftover Christmas cookies. M: “Wait, is that fudge? I never knew I liked…

I just watched a short HBO documentary called, “I Can’t Do This but I Can Do That,” which is about 8 different kids with learning differences, generally ages 9 to 14. They’re talking about what school is like for them, how they’ve been dealing with their academic issues, how it feels to struggle with school,…