The Blog

Dear parents,

Who better to teach your children about race than you? Yet, to best educate your children means you have to be committed to educating yourself. The resources are plentiful and we would be wise to utilize them because our children are learning about race whether we teach them or not. T...

The Intersection of Rhetorics and Justice: An IB unit of study

When teaching about historically marginalized and oppressed communities, that’s usually what students understand: we are in pain, in sorrow, and are oppressed. While there is accuracy to that due to systemic oppression, we often end up ...

In honor of Black History Month, Roberto performed a poem entitled “Beautiful Blackness” and blew us all away! The words are below and a viewer’s recording included here, also.

BEAUTIFUL BLACKNESS

Sweet juice drips from the BLACKberry on full lips

Adding to our fullness

And it’s just so BEAUTI...

Children love books and storytelling. As parents, it’s a go-to activity. In my home, my almost-3-year-old reads on her own even though she doesn’t know how to read. She loves looking at the pictures and will read for 30 minutes all by herself! I love watching her eyes scan the page, go back and fort...

You can’t teach the book The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and not discuss the n-word. Ignoring it is irresponsible. So, how does a teacher engage her class in a discussion around this very controversial and complicated word? 

NOTE: My current teaching context is a small independent school with ...

I’ve had many difficult teaching moments. Some were a result of my own doing, yet many were a result of systemic inequalities that bled into the four walls of my classroom. I once had a student drop out of his junior year in order to work full time so he could help his family back home in Guatemala ...

I didn’t realize how unprepared I was for Trump’s election. I had simply not thought that result through. Immediately I began receiving text messages. My father’s words to all of his children will stay with me. I was teary-eyed as I dropped Analiz off at school. I cried a bit when I arrived at my pa...

Recently, I wrote a response to the Larry Ferlazzo’s Classroom Q & A blog question: What are good strategies teachers can use when exploring “controversial” topics? Since my courses are infused with what folks consider to be controversial topics, this was somewhat of an easy write-up for me. My work...

Teaching at Headwaters is quite the change of pace & style for me. The main differences are the creative autonomy I have and the student academic freedoms they enjoy.  I wrote more about that here.

What are the main differences? 

1. Debriefing class/lessons.

2. Offering students the opportunity t...