Category: Two cents

For each school day of the 2020-21 school year, I will be writing two sentences to capture some of the impressions, feelings, experiences, or thoughts I had that day. This is the 28th post in the series.

Monday (Apr 26)
Gave a public apology to my students at the beginning of class today. Owning up to my weaknesses when it comes to remote learning, I apologized for my sour, emotionally-absent attitude at the end of last week; I’m not sure how it was received, but it had to be done — they deserve better.

Tuesday (Apr 27)
A student who I had two years ago, who I sorely miss for many reasons, chased me down in the stairwell early in the morning and asked if we could catch up sometime. That absolutely made my day.

Wednesday (Apr 28)
The deputy superintendent was in my class today; I didn’t particularly welcome the visit, but it fell into my lap anyway. Through the years, I’ve developed a pessimistic view of these visits…despite me not warmly receiving my APs invite, today felt different for me; my reaction to his presence was rooted in welcoming him and his energy into a weird, isolated classroom.

Thursday (Apr 29)
Thrilled when several students and I got to play basketball in the gym during lunch. It was a socially distant game of 500 with everyone wearing masks and surgical gloves, but I had the time of my life.

Friday (Apr 30)
Had a wonderful cogen. Given where I was seven days ago, what a difference a week can make.


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For each school day of the 2020-21 school year, I will be writing two sentences to capture some of the impressions, feelings, experiences, or thoughts I had that day. This is the 27th post in the series.

Monday (Apr 19)
Thoroughly enjoyed my lunch banter with some students in the courtyard (SHEESHHH!). My morning walks with BD are routine and therapeutic; I see them as an investment in self-awareness and self-care.

Tuesday (Apr 20)
In the silence that pervades most of my Zoom classes these days, I had a crushing moment during 8th period when we spent 25 minutes working to state 5 noticing/wonderings about an anonymous piece of student work. On the other side of things, I had two touching moments of connection (one was with a former student — AS — and the other was with a current student — WF).

Wednesday (Apr 21)
I was zapped of motivation today. Was hard to stay positive, upbeat, and with it today; I stuck to content and wasn’t proud of it.

Thursday (Apr 22)
Still feeling defeated by remote learning, I dragged myself through my classes, and my students sensed it. I’m coming to terms with what it means to have sustained this level of professional stress for this long; today was really hard, this week was horrible.

Friday (Apr 23)
A quiet day in the building that I used to regroup from a shattered week that put a huge dent in my remote learning armor. Onward I go.


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For each school day of the 2020-21 school year, I will be writing two sentences to capture some of the impressions, feelings, experiences, or thoughts I had that day. This is the 26th post in the series.

Monday (Apr 12)
After brainstorming with my cogen for three weeks, I was proud to unveil my new and improved math poetry assignment today. It went from being strictly haiku-based last year to now having four different options for students to choose from: a haiku, Fibonacci poem, free form poem, or math rap.

Tuesday (Apr 13)
To encourage more participation, out of no where, I started doing pushups in ninth period (I’m teaching in the gym). I’ve been slacking on doing my daily pushups…why not kill two birds with one stone?

Wednesday (Apr 14)
An emotional day; started off feeling isolated and ran through a gauntlet of feelings as the hours passed by. I held back tears in conversation with a colleague about the end of the school year; I realized that I’m concealing a lot of dismay that will probably come back to bite me in June.

Thursday (Apr 15)
Though it felt rushed, I got a little closer to mapping out a lesson on predatory lending at the final CHRE workshop with two trusted colleagues. In the evening, I attended an excellent talk by Sian Beilock on math anxiety through MfA‘s Thursday Think series.

Friday (Apr 16)
Had a thought-provoking conversation with two colleagues and a student about The Glass Castle this afternoon…interestingly, the student informally enticed all of us teachers to read it individually (both last year and this year) and then got us all together to chat about it for 45 minutes; it was an incredibly unique way of connecting during these crazy times. In an impromptu venting session, my AP shared an impassioned plea to not tell the stories of our students, no matter how inspirational doing so may seem to us; they don’t necessarily want to wear their struggle on their sleeve for all to see — we shouldn’t force them to.


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For each school day of the 2020-21 school year, I will be writing two sentences to capture some of the impressions, feelings, experiences, or thoughts I had that day. This is the 25th post in the series.

Monday (Apr 5)
I got my second dose of the vaccine today and as a result I spent a half-day in the building; I created a weird, poorly-planned video for my classes as a substitute. I cheerfully created my first two in-person handshakes with students this year; one involves throwing a football and the other involves pulling down a facemask.

Tuesday (Apr 6)
Had a student, J, drop by office hours unannounced to see how he could begin making up work from earlier marking periods. Played a super fun game of POOF! in the courtyard with the students during lunch.

Wednesday (Apr 7)
Had a pre-observation meeting with my colleague whose doing the case study on me for her grad class. I admitted to her that I’ve felt a bit exposed and insecure from all the attention she’s given me these last few weeks; my thoughtless, mediocre teaching has been on full display to someone that I deeply respect.

Thursday (Apr 8)
Today was the third session with Ghouldy Muhammad. I’m reminded to start with genius, beauty, and joy….always.

Friday (Apr 9)
Impressed and proud that my school had the courage to organize and facilitate our first whole-staff affinity group sessions today. Affinity groups have been a long time coming; it wasn’t optional…and it got expectantly messy.



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