Most people tend to assume that my students are capable of less-than-stellar academic performances because they have complicated lives outside school.

Every year, almost every student says, “I suck at writing. I hate it.” I hear this phrase far more than “Hello,” “Thank you,” or even “Can I use the restroom?”

"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.

Throughout my years of teaching, I’ve discovered that students are often more eager to read and discuss horror stories than other material.

As the 20th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide approached in April 2014, I took it as an opportunity to teach my students about this horrific and tragic event.

As a newer interventionist, I faced a formidable task: engage reluctant readers and address their needs with minimal resources for an entire 90 minutes.

Teaching is a great responsibility. I teach English and believe that the ability to communicate, at a personal and societal level, is what builds strong communities and ensures ownership over one’s future. Thus, it’s important that we teachers spend a lot of time on our craft—deliberating the best ways to teach and make lessons fun, interactive, and relatable to students. Professional development thrives on discipline pedagogy and school departments meet to align goals and assignments and to discuss data assessment.

I search, “Talking to children about racialized violence.” I know experts say children are never too young to talk about race, but none of them have a lesson plan for me.

You see, here’s the thing that some of us – teachers and parents alike – don’t really take time to stop and think about: kids’ feelings have value too. And they all have their own needs and wants at any given time.