Instead of staying after school yesterday to prepare for the next day, teachers from across the state filed into the Ivy Tech Culinary and Conference Center to raise their voices yet again about the importance of raising teacher pay and to provide solutions for consideration to make that happen to Governor Holcomb’s Next Level Teacher…
I entered this teaching professional to impact students of color. I wanted them to see education the way that I saw education. Education was an escape. It is an escape from whatever life you are living. Education is also a gateway. It is a gateway to a brighter future filled with possibilities you might not…
A school in Ohio is under fire amid reports that students were able to get hold of a firearm kept at the school. The incident took place back in March at Highland Elementary in South Bloomfield Township. The school, like many others, has a concealed weapons program that allows certain employees to carry guns. The…
Since the passing of the great literary genius Toni Morrison, people have taken time to reflect upon her body of work. Morrison, the winner of the Nobel prize in literature, is known for her novels like Beloved and for her essays and lectures. She also wrote children’s book with her son Slade Morrison, who preceded…
This week students returning to school at two of Indianapolis’s most prominent catholic schools were greeted by an LGBTQ advocacy group on their way in. The group, Shelly’s Voice, was formed after Shelly Fitzgerald was placed on administrative leave from her guidance counselor job at Roncalli high school because of her same-sex marriage. Her story…
The start of a new school year is here. It is an exciting time. We begin thinking about how to decorate the classroom with all the ideas we did not get to use last year. With a new school year, we welcome new students. We also welcome a new crop of teachers embarking on their…
Last month, over sixty of my relatives took a cruise to the Bahamas for our family reunion. It was the first time my children had been out of the country and on a ship. Although they read fluently and above grade level, they were confused about the terminology my husband and I were using while…
Teach for America (TFA) and other alternative teaching programs provide an invaluable service of providing teachers for hard to staff schools. These schools tend to have populations of students who are of color and/or living in poverty. Students in these schools are used to the teacher churn. Teachers come and go, or there is not…
If you would have asked me last school year what I would be doing this school year, I would have told you I would still be an elementary librarian. Apparently, some educators did not see that as a real teaching job. Yes, I’m no longer a librarian, but not because of those comments, but those…
It was freshman year of college, in Fall 2006, when I was first introduced in more detail to Songs of Solomon. Tuesday, Toni Morrison, who won a Noble Prize in Literature in 1993, died at the age of 88. She will be remembered as not only one of the greatest African American Women writers but…