Ever since I was four years old, I dreamed of becoming a teacher. However, I never saw any teachers who shared aspects of my identities.

Teaching art history in an entirely online environment has brought a new set of challenges and opportunities that I’ve come to embrace with enthusiasm.

As a Caribbean immigrant educator, I have had to adapt to the United States in several ways—racially, socially, and academically.

I see sleepy kids every day in my 8th grade English class. Their heads are drooping. Their eyes are barely open. Their energy is low.

I have lost count of the number of times I have been told that rules without relationships lead to rebellion. Yet today, relationships with students seem to be feared instead of embraced. Over the years, quite by accident, I have discovered that this precept from days gone by is critical to classroom rules and to learning itself. Relationships are an essential part of learning, especially relationships between teachers and students.

I thought large print titles would be good for students with visual impairments or for struggling readers. I had no idea how many regular education students would enjoy them too.

When you have a teacher who has presence, students are impacted in ways that positively affect the class. But what exactly is teacher presence?

Are you interested in improving student engagement with your ELL students? Here’s an idea that I tried at my elementary school that was both fun and successful—a Rubik’s Cube club.

Like many of my students, I too use digital devices in my daily personal life, but the enormous piles of notes and paper combined with the constant fighting with the students to put their gadgets away drove me to reevaluate how I could use those very gadgets to my advantage.