I was I my classroom, waiting for a parent to show up when the administrators came over the loudspeakers. “Everyone in the portables needs to evacuate into the main building.” We’d heard rumors of storms and had been told by our principal to come to school prepared for some rough weather but so far we…

I watched the tears stream down his face while his mother continued to abscond him in here broken English. “I work hard every day for you. Your teachers, they work hard every day for you. Is this what you want? Is this the life you want to lead?” Eduardo* continued to cry but didn’t say…

This last week, during my planning periods I’ve been helping to administer the WIDA test. The WIDA test measures the speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills of English Language Learners, aka all of my students. Students are scored on a scale of 1-6 with a one meaning that they are unable to communicate in English…

  There are only three weeks left of school but in my head it might as well be October. I haven’t dealt with this burned-out, nauseous-during-the-drive-to-school, counting-down-the-days state of mind since I was fresh out of Institute, coaching two sports, and lesson planning day by day. I’ve switched from trying to thrive and achieve exemplary…

I was going to write a really negative post today, partly as a form of catharsis and partly just to let the world know how bad things can get once testing is over and student’s motivation goes out the window. I’m floundering and at the end of each day, all I can think about is…

Over the course of a school year, there are thousands of things that a student attending school in a low-income community deals with that his or her more financially stable counterparts don’t. From lack of parental support to poor nutrition, gang violence to high teacher turnover, the kids that I have become so close to…

Yesterday I became aquinted with the beuaracracy of the Department of Human Services in my attempt to help out two of my boys (I wrote about their plight yesterday in this post). While I understand the need for all the red tape that goes on, especially in places that have the potential to be dangerous,…

Today after soccer practice, I’m going to drive to the local shelter. There, I am going to pick up two of my students and drive them home with me. They are going to stay with me for the next few days. After that, I don’t know what will happen to them. The two students are…

As of this writing, it’s second hour and all 21 of my students are working. Not just working, but working hard. I haven’t had to do more than redirect anyone yet and in my first hour, we got through everything. Group work went great and everyone was on task and talking about the right things.…

I can’t begin to describe the energy I’ve wasted this year arguing with students about their behavior. “Yoceline, this is your third warning. You got one when you walked into the room screaming and another when you sharpened your pencil while I was talking and this one right now.” “Paola, I can see your phone out.…

Another Teach For Us blogger posted this. I’m carrying these words inside me as I go about today, especially given that I am proctoring benchmarks in the afternoon.   ” Do not depend on the hope of results. When you are doing the sort of work you have taken on, essentially an apostolic work, you…

At the risk of jinxing what could be a beautiful thing, there’s currently a blizzard barreling towards Oklahoma City and chances are good that we’ll have a snow day tomorrow. In fact, one of my roommates is so certain that he made a Slap Bet with my other roommate. In any case, having tomorrow off…

I’ve never been one to dwell things. In college, I was always the one who could shrug off a bad test score or an intramural loss and move on to the next one. It’s not that I didn’t care- to the contrary, it’s because I cared about so many different things that there was always…

There are two main times that I blog: Either right after school or during my planning period in the afternoon. During the rest of the day, I’m preoccupied with sprinting marathons in an effort to do right by my kids and at night I’m too busy alternately trying to plan the next day while at…

Since the new semester started three weeks ago, I’ve gotten about 8 new students. They’re always kids that I recognize from other classes and they’d always show up one at a time, a new student here, a new student there. I had no idea where these students were coming from or why they were suddenly…

Since the start of the new semester I’ve had the opportunity to reengage in one of my favorite parts of working at RMS: coaching. And, even better, this semester I’m getting to work with my one true love, socccer. As much fun as softball is, soccer is and always has been my forte. In high…

Yesterday was our school’s “Data Retreat”, where representatives from the State Department of Education came to RMS and looked at all of our data, interviewed students, and spent time in classrooms. This was the first time that the State actually came to RMS since the decision was made last year to have RMS be taken…

At Institute, we were taught that establishing positive relationships with families and the community is almost as important as establishing positive relationships with the students themselves. And, to be honest, I think that myself and my team (mainly my team) have done a great job in doing this. We consistently have parent/teacher conferences and have…

So you ask, “Mr. Goodier, are you a good teacher yet?” Ha! Hardly. This is still the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I still fall asleep within thirty seconds of getting in bed. I still feel like I’m surviving minute to minute, day to day. A year ago, the five months from January to May…

It’s a long year and I wholeheartedly believe that it’s all the little things that make or break you. No one day is unbearable and no single positive interaction can sustain you for the duration. Instead, we get by on a thousand daily occurances. Here are some of mine today: – Found my tape dispenser-…

January. Monday afternoon. So, here we are, back again. I don’t even know where break went, but it’s gone now and I’ve got five months before I’ll get another one like it. And so here I am, back at RMS, but also back on this website. Procrastinating making worksheets, for sure, but hopefully also doing…

About four months ago, I lost eight of my students. There was a drug bust and a distressingly high number of students on my team were implicated and suspended. Today marked their first day back at RMS since the beginning of October, back when I was trying desperately to keep my head above water. When…

If my TFA experience was actually a sitcom (and really, it feels like one sometimes) then last week’s RMS Choir Concert was the season finale. After another long day of teaching, topped off with an all-staff meeting, I stuck around with another handful of coworkers to prepare for the concert, which we’d combined with an…

During the school, we come under tremendous stresses every single day. Constantly, we are inundated with negativity. Apathy, beuracracy, poverty, and outright failure stymie progress every day and prevent us from maintaining the searing optimism that drew many of us to this line of work. Every single day I hear or see something that shouldn’t…

Too often, when we talk about transformational change we talk about test scores. We talk about turning kids into these academic machines that achieve achieve achieve. We talk about management and big goals and data and a million other things. Don’t get me wrong- all these things are important. But sometimes, maybe transformational change just…