I decided somewhere in my first year of teaching that I wanted to teach for a third year. My reasoning was simple – I knew that as a first year teacher I was below average (which is putting it nicely) and that as a second year teacher I would be about average, and that in …
It was hard. Really hard, actually. It’s funny – school got out not even that long ago, but my memories of what every moment of TFA felt like are blurring fast – I can name my kids and describe their personalities, but can I remember everything I taught? We read Whistle for Willie both years. …
Dear Future Samantha, I hope teaching is going well! I hope that you’ve inspired your students to achieve and love school and learning. I hope you’ve helped your students realize that they can do anything. I hope that your students love to read and have favorite books and seek out new ones. I hope your …
In TFA, I’ve heard people talk about how your classroom is a reflection of your personality, how you need to bring yourself and your leadership experiences to this work. I’m skeptical of the idea. I feel, often, that my identities are not particularly helpful in the classroom, and I generally don’t see how they work …
By now, we’ve all heard of the 10,000 hours idea. In case you live under a rock, the gist of it is that it takes 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to become expert at anything. This idea is more of a guideline than a rule, but basically: If you want to be an expert at …
Jessica Ruscello Reading growth is a thing. A really important thing. The reading growth goal that TFA assigns us is 1.6 years of growth on the grade equivalency scale, when our students take their STAR Reading test. Right now, we have a range of scale stores from 66 to 88, which translates to a .4 …
Somehow, it was the first day of school, and now we’re 15% of the way through this year. It’s weird how fast time has passed this year. I think my management has gotten a lot better this year – we started teaching routines on day one and I’ve been trying my hardest to stick to …
Alternate title: my nerdy aspirations. I have big, exciting plans for the upcoming holiday weekend, basically just planning for the upcoming year. I have 4 days off and I hope I can get the majority of my planning done for the month of August. This includes planning the sequence of teaching procedures, Here’s the agenda: …
Yesterday was the last day of school. Over the summer, I wrote in my classroom vision that I wanted to have a class where my students were collaborative and supportive and learning from each other. Come October, December, February, this felt like a silly, naive idea, totally irrelevant to the actual struggles I’ve had in …
TFA frames teaching as leadership. That’s the name of the framework we’re following, TAL – Teaching as Leadership. Throughout the recruitment, this is a point they head home – this is leadership training, our students need strong leaders, and diversity, equity, and inclusivity is the center of our leadership. As a student leader, this was …