Teacher stories, interviews, and videos related to mental health.

On empathy for teenagers

Students have so many things that they have to do, both academically and non-academically, and I think it gets very easy for adults, whether they work in classrooms or not, to not have empathy for what students are going through developmentally, emotionally, academically.

Continue ReadingOn empathy for teenagers

On AI & human connection

One of the differences between learning from an AI program and learning with a teacher in a dialectical manner is that you don't have that empathy, connection, dialogue.  All of our kids have so much potential and deserve for someone to have high expectations of them and to help them improve and grow, whatever that means for them.

Continue ReadingOn AI & human connection

Tamika Fluker

I was working at The Bridge Home at St. Mary's Women and Children's Center. It’s a shelter for infants to 12-year-olds. If the Department of Child and Family Services pulled a kid from their home, we housed and counseled them.

Continue ReadingTamika Fluker

Dan Shutes

The bulk of my fifth graders are just excited to see me. They want to talk to you in their downtime. They want to sit by you at lunch, and they want you to come to recess with them. That feeling is the driving force that made me become a teacher.

Continue ReadingDan Shutes

Ashley Kannan

I grew up in Oak Park in the 1980s. People were all about the melting pot. The idea was that everyone is the same and nobody looks different — we're all part of this collective homogenous blob. One of the drawbacks to that was that I was never really seen.

Continue ReadingAshley Kannan