I was sitting at my desk during my planning period, grading a stack of essays from my high school history classes, when the guidance counselor appeared at my door. “Jenn, I just got a call from a parent. She wants to schedule a parent teacher conference. Her son’s grade has dropped significantly this quarter, and … Read more
I was standing at the front of my fourth-period U.S. History class during the second semester of 2015, feeling pretty good about myself. I had spent the weekend crafting this incredible lesson on the New Deal, complete with primary sources and a mock congressional hearing. My sophomores were going to be so into it. About … Read more
I remember sitting in my classroom at 4:47 p.m. on a Tuesday, staring at a stack of essays I hadn’t touched in three days. The hallway had gone quiet an hour earlier. My coffee was cold. I had a splitting headache that had started somewhere around second period and never let up. A parent email … Read more
I remember the exact moment I realized something had shifted. I was teaching my World History class, and we were discussing primary-source accounts of the Rwandan genocide. A student raised her hand and asked, completely matter-of-fact, “Why didn’t they just move to a different country?” No malice. No coldness. Just a genuine question that revealed … Read more
I remember sitting at my desk during planning period, staring at a stack of unit tests on the causes of World War I. For weeks, I’d watched my sophomores confuse long-term causes like militarism and the alliance system with short-term triggers like the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. I’d seen it in their document analyses, … Read more
In month 3 of my first job, teaching World History for three months by then, I still had a student who hadn’t muttered a word. Not once. She turned in maybe a third of the assignments. I remember standing there, thinking, “I have no idea what to do with this kid.” That moment stuck with me … Read more
I vividly remember standing in the back of my classroom watching a student meticulously fold a paper football. He wasn’t disruptive. He wasn’t sleeping. He had simply checked out so completely that origami felt like a better use of his time than the debate we were having about the Treaty of Versailles. That moment stuck … Read more
I still remember the moment in the spring of 2016 when a student raised his hand not to answer a question, but to ask one that stopped me cold. “Mrs. B,” he said, “why are we learning about the Treaty of Versailles the exact same way every single class learns everything else? Read the chapter, … Read more
I remember the exact moment I realized that “just try harder” wasn’t going to cut it anymore. It was the second semester with a group of high school juniors in a World History class. I had spent the previous evening meticulously crafting what I thought was a genuinely interesting lesson on the Silk Road, complete … Read more
I still remember the exact moment I realized how badly I had misread a student’s disengagement. It was my third year in the classroom, and a 10th grader sat in the back row of my World History class, hoodie up, head down, contributing absolutely nothing. I assumed he didn’t care about the material, that he … Read more
After 17 years in the classroom, I learned that the most dangerous thing in a room isn’t a disruptive student…it’s a silent one. The first time I realized student apathy has nothing to do with laziness, I was staring at a former student who’d failed my history class but could recite the damage-per-second stats of … Read more
I was standing in front of my period-four U.S. History class, midway through the second semester, when I realized not a single student was looking at me. I had a meticulously crafted lesson on muckrakers and trust-busting, complete with primary source photographs and what I thought was a compelling discussion prompt about corporate power. A … Read more