I spent the last couple days at a Teach Like a Champion training in Albany New York and couldn’t be more inspired, engaged, and motivated than I am right now. As I look forward to next year I will be moving into my fourth year at my placement school and I have never been more optimistic or excited. With the training comes a commitment by my school’s administration to change the focus and trajectory of our school towards teacher actions that drive for student success.

We will be implementing these amazing strategies over the next year to improve and reinvent our teaching techniques to make sure once and for all that the achievement gap in SE Baltimore is History! My role in this process will be mentor, observer, and trainer. Along with this new responsibility I will be shrinking grade levels and changing contents. For the first time I will be teaching a high stakes tested subject while increasing the level of teaching within my own building and leading an entire team towards success. I could not be more excited.

Within the last three years I have seen changes that I could never have imagined when I first walked into room 209. My principal, and mentor, left the school, I got married, and I stayed in the classroom. I thought I would be a two and done TFA CM. I thought that in those two years I would make some change, see some growth, and move on. My students had other thoughts. They found a way to motivate and inspire me that I could have never imagined. Through all the painful changes and heartbreaking losses we have grown and learned together. They have taught me so much and I have in my own part tried to teach them.

I am going to attempt to track our continuing story here. To be a written testament to their inspirational growth.