Changing The Narrative, Right From My Classroom
Tomorrow, New York City teachers go for their first day back from vacation. With no kids and two weeks to clean out their caches (well, some of us), we’ll hopefully come back refreshed and ready to take on the relentless energies of the burgeoning young minds in front of us.
Or whatever it is we choose to believe.
This year, I’ve never been as excited to hop in and do great work with my students. With three classes (a full math program in middle school), I’ll have plenty of opportunity to refine my teaching skills, get students ready for high school, and create and sharpen these amateur mathematicians. I came in a week early to get my classroom in order, scrub down desks, and organize the mounds of boxes that some of us moved from upstairs to this classroom, bopping along to Jay Z and Onyx in the interim.
Which should make everyone wonder how the hell I’m going to change the narrative right from my classroom.
That’s the thing: I haven’t figured it out, either. What I do know is that I will continue to rebuke the nonsense that comes across my plate as a teacher, starting from the data reports due to us this week (teachers, check your DOE inboxes) to the mad rush to cover everything under the sun before their big exams and everything in between. I’ll resist professional development folk trying to push their product or influence me into doing something unless they’ve done it themselves. I’ll keep my energy high throughout the year, even when students that look like mine. I’ll evenChanging The Narrative, Right From My Classroom | The Jose Vilson:
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My debut solo book, This Is Not A Test: A New Narrative on Race, Class, and Education already has endorsements from Karen Lewis, Pedro Noguera, Raquel Cepeda, Gregory Michie, Chris Lehmann, Randi Weingarten, Dennis van Roekel, Diane Ravitch, Barnett Berry, Renee Moore, Cindi Rigsbee, and many more ... |