Educators play a pivotal role in shaping the next generation of changemakers, especially when it comes to addressing racism.

Student absences are not a new issue in education, and the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have only added to this growing problem.

It’s said that there is always a blessing in dark times, and this was it: my chance to share my 1970s childhood with 25 children of 2020.

I began the school year in a classroom with eighteen standard desks. Today, I have none. This isn’t a lament about budgetary constraints or overcrowded classrooms; it’s a deliberate choice.

When I first created the reading test, it was supposed to simply track student progress. But I quickly discovered that sharing the results of my personal tracking system with students has completely changed their engagement and motivation levels.

"Why read when you can watch the movie?" In my eight years as an educator, no other sentiment has been quite so crushing to hear from children.

We don’t have to choose between structure and creativity. The best teaching lives in the in-between, where we follow a script, but we fill it with our stories, our students’ voices, and our classroom rhythms.

I avidly recall a second grade class that would excitedly huddle around my rocking chair for story time. Students scrambled around sliding chairs to the carpet where I read heartwarming and sometimes zany tales, they reminded me that story time was counted among the most meaningful and cherished moments of a child’s day. Story time is a child’s portal into endless worlds, kingdoms, and dimensions.

After teaching at an alternative middle school for the past 4 years, the one thing I constantly hear from new students is: “We can move around in your room and not get in trouble?