Rooted in REAL: Culturally Responsive Practice – Thursday Edition Is it me, or is discipline starting to feel optional? The REAL Story Listen and listen carefully, I have never been a parent whisperer. Not even close. I spent years dreading those calls, those emails, those conferences where I could feel myself preparing for war before I even said hello simply because I had high standards and holding students accountable was always a hill I was willing to die on. I could run you some very...
6 days ago • 5 min read
The REAL Reset: Math Moves That Matter – Tuesday Edition Teaching on Empty: It's Testing Time Series Part 3: Stop doing all the talking. Your students need the reps. The REAL Story Test prep week in most classrooms looks like this: teacher at the board, working through problems, just yapping away while students are copying. A few may ask questions but mostly students zoned out or students just watching you. And I get it. You are tired, you feel behind, and it feels faster to get through the...
8 days ago • 3 min read
Rooted in REAL: Culturally Responsive Practice – Thursday Edition How this part of the year breaks you, and how to keep it together through June. The REAL Story Nobody warned you the hardest part of the school year would be right now. And you are probably wondering why? For starters, September was relentless because you rebuilt everything from scratch, learned 150 new names, figured out who needs the window seat and who cannot sit next to who. And you sat through the same bullying and gang...
13 days ago • 4 min read
The REAL Reset: Math Moves That Matter – Tuesday Edition Teaching on Empty: It's Testing Time Series Part 2: You don't have time to reteach everything. Here's how to figure out what actually matters. The REAL Story After I got through that task-based week I told you about in Part 1, I had a new problem. I had a Friday quiz in my hand, a stack of CER responses on my desk, and about eight days until testing. And I had no idea what to do with what I was looking at. I could see that some students...
15 days ago • 4 min read
Rooted in REAL: Culturally Responsive Practice – Thursday Edition He Walked His Siblings to School Before He Ever Walked Into Mine The REAL Story There was a student I'll call Marcus. Marcus walked into my classroom every single day like he had already decided the day was going to be terrible. Hood up, zero eye contact, and a beeline straight to the nearest desk so he could put his head down and go to sleep. He was close to six feet tall in 8th grade, so when he folded himself into that chair...
20 days ago • 4 min read
The REAL Reset: Math Moves That Matter – Tuesday Edition Teaching on Empty: It's Testing Time Series Part 1: Alexa, I have 3 standards left to teach and only 2 days until testing... The REAL Story Last year, around this time, I was absolutely exhausted. It was a Friday before the last full week before spring break, and I genuinely did not know how I was going to make it. And once we got back from break, we went right into testing. I had to figure out how to show up for my students when I was...
22 days ago • 4 min read
Rooted in REAL: Culturally Responsive Practice – Thursday Edition I Was Building a Case to Get Her Expelled. Then Life Happened. The REAL Story One of the memories I have of one of my worst students turned favorite is a student I will call “Tiffany” for confidentiality reasons. She was barely 90 pounds soaking wet and gave me hell every single day. And to be completely transparent, I am sure this was God’s “reap what you sow” edition, as I was a hellion myself in high school. And my high...
27 days ago • 6 min read
Rooted in REAL: Culturally Responsive Practice – Thursday Edition What We Don’t Say About Urban Classrooms Series Behavior #6: I Am Never Going to Use This The REAL Story At the beginning of my career, before I could see the reasons behind behaviors, I would often anticipate students shutting down during math, especially during harder concepts like systems of equations. And honestly, sometimes I just let it happen. The volume of behaviors I was managing at my urban school was overwhelming,...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
The REAL Reset: Math Moves That Matter – Tuesday Edition Wait Time Series Part 1: Wait For It... Except You're Not The REAL Story One thing that has always been non negotiable in my math classroom is math discourse. Baby, we are not just doing math in my classroom, we are talking about it every single week using claim, evidence and reasoning because I have seen firsthand what happens to a student's understanding when they can speak the math out loud and defend it. Early in my career I did...
about 1 month ago • 4 min read