This school year will be my 20th year in the classroom. For the past 19 years, summer months have provided necessary respite—the quiet pause—I’ve needed to refuel for the coming school year. To refill my cup so that I can arrive well and whole for my students… Read More
Last year, in my first post for this series, I asked, how do we show up? What does it mean to “show up” in anti-racist work? What does it mean to “show up” in educational spaces—educational spaces which (of all places) should be inherently anti-racist… Read More
This is a guest post by Michelle Martin, PhD, for the #31DaysIPBOC project. Dr. Martin is the Beverly Cleary Professor for Children and Youth Services at the University of Washington Information School. When I was five years old, two different relatives gave me the same doll… Read More
With the primary season in full swing and still more than eight months away from November… I’m already exhausted. Actually, I’ve been exhausted. Every day feels like a hundred. This post isn’t really about the election, but politics is always personal and local. And so… Read More
Advancing the false idea that teaching through an antiracist lens and developing students’ reading and writing skills are mutually exclusive is a gross misinterpretation of the work I see many teachers do—teachers who engage students in deep learning and support them in developing the skills… Read More
NOTE: This post was originally published and written for Literacy Today, a publication of the International Literacy Association (ILA). Click on the image at the right to download or print a PDF of the original article (and click here browse the entire issue). In May… Read More
“Your racial consciousness determines how you show up.” A few weeks ago, a small group of teachers—all of us teachers of color—gathered for dinner with Tony Hudson, an Equity Transformational Specialist from the Pacific Education Group (PEG). This year, our district partnered with PEG to… Read More
I: Daniel was the son raised in the valley. A bucket for a swimming pool. Air conditioning was hosing down the cement porch, waiting for a breeze. Him and Mom, Granny and Papá Romulo. Then Dad returned from the war. That’s all I know of… Read More
I ended our first full week of school by writing, and reading aloud, a letter to my students. There’s so much more to say, but it’s a start. This weekend, they write back. 🙂 August 31, 2018 Dear 10th graders, One question that I often… Read More
This summer, when writing’s been challenging for me, I’ve started to use Twitter as a place to draft my thoughts in series of Tweets and then revisit later as blog post. There’s something about limiting myself to the small writing of just 280 characters that makes… Read More
