Teacher Appreciation Week | Edutopia
Throughout Teacher Appreciation Week, Edutopia highlighted four teachers' stories from Teachers in Their Power.
Khalid Birdsong | “You can leave education and come back into it”
At first, I didn't want to be a teacher. I come from teachers. My mother's a teacher, my grandmother was a teacher — on my mother's side, there are teachers all the way back to slavery. I grew up in…
Brown Deer High School | 3 art teachers share their stories
Three art teachers from Brown Deer High School in Brown Deer, Wisconsin share their perspectives on teaching and learning.
Kritika Srinivasan | Behavior and bearded dragons
My mom came to the U.S. from India. She got a scholarship to do her PhD in French at UCLA, and then she adopted me from India when I was six months old. It was a huge family occasion —…
Black History Month: Educators Share Their Thoughts
Throughout this month, we celebrate Black excellence, heritage, and tradition. Though it’s crucial to honor Black history all year long, Black History Month invites teachers to dig deeper, provide students with more context, and connect the past to the present in meaningful ways.
Sean Bui | “I left law and became a teacher”
For the majority of my life, I was convinced that my road ended with me becoming an attorney. My family set the value that attorney was the route to go, and I thought I was pretty good at public speaking…
Terrence Smith | Teaching in partnership with the community
My aunt and uncle raised me. I’m the youngest of seven kids; my brother and I were taken away from our biological parents due to their drug addiction. I was adopted by my mother’s sister right after I was born,…
Jenna Hewitt King | “I wanted to work in the place that transformed me”
I went to high school here in San Leandro, at the school where I teach. We have three ‘academy programs,’ where students can apply to go through 10th through 12th grade in cohorts focused on multimedia, business and finance, or…
BryAnn Sandy | Reflections of a new teacher
I was born in Brooklyn. I grew up from pre-K to seventh grade in the Bronx — but then they started to raise the rent. The buildings were terrible. My mom told us the rent prices and the conditions of…
Aidn White | Changing the narrative on caregiving
I grew up in Wisconsin with nine younger cousins and two younger siblings. I was constantly asked to babysit them, from the time I was nine years old all the way until I left for college. At the time, I…