Leading From the Classroom

I lost two former students this past spring to two different and tragedies that are devastating young black men.  I lost one student to COVID. Though none of us are immune--COVID is killing black men at alarmingly higher rates that white people. I remember Andre as a sweet and smiling young man who loved video games and (like a lot of Freshman) would much rather be playing them sneakily on his chromebook than doing his math assignments.  The second former student I lost to the bullet of a Police Gun. I remember McHale as a polite and quiet student.  In the cases of both these students, I also taught their sisters. I'm haunted by the fact that as I think back to our relationships I was much much closer to each of their sisters. I wonder how I might have let my own biases and prejudices get in my way and I want to be better for young black men in the future.  I remember Andre and McHale and I will do the hard work to get better for them. May their memory be a blessing....

My district was not prepared for E-Learning. When the initial order came to close the schools on March 13, we were one week away from Spring Break. They didn't do anything for that first week.  After Spring Break the governor closed the schools through April and the district send out a their plan. They mailed work home to students and asked teachers to create videos and lessons to support the completion of that work through Schoology. I EDIT EVERYTHING. I THRIVE ON EDITING MY MATERIALS and ADJUSTING PACING. I CAN'T TEACH SOMETHING I CAN'T EDIT. But I had literally just started this job two months before, so I prepared to bite my tongue, but it wasn't as bad as I thought.  The first two weeks of that home learning period they used I-Ready Home Learning packets from Curriculum Resources. These weren't horrible and I created video tutoring lessons to post in Schoology, got good at Schoology links and pages, and hosted zoom tutoring calls. I figured out the home learnin...