Teachers share stories of student transformation and how they helped address individual students’ needs.
I wanted to be a professional ballet dancer. At the end of my sophomore year of high school, I realized that probably wasn’t going to happen for me. I quit dancing and suddenly threw myself into high school. Within a…
In the back of my head, I think I knew from a very young age that I wanted to be a teacher. It was mostly about finding the right subject matter that got me super excited about teaching. I remember…
I grew up in Brooklyn and attended PS 169. I always wanted to be an astronaut. I was fascinated with outer space. I idealized it. Then, when the first teacher went up in 1985, there was that horrible accident where the…
My first summer during college, I worked at the Atlanta Community Food Bank with middle schoolers, running a summer meals stand. I loved spending time with them organizing activities, and there was something really energizing for me about working with…
My parents met working in a group home for adults with intellectual disabilities in Rhode Island. My dad stayed within that profession, moving all the way up to his position now. He's the commissioner for Connecticut Developmental Services. I grew…
My younger sister and I are 15 years apart. When I was in college studying creative writing, she was just starting kindergarten and struggling with her sight words. She has ADHD, and my parents couldn’t afford a tutor. So when…
I became a teacher by luck. I was a chemical engineering major at Seton Hall University in New Jersey, where I grew up. There was a Special Olympics event, and I was setting up for it because I worked with…
From a young age, I loved to read. My mom could be standing right in front of me calling my name and I literally would not hear her because I would be so engrossed in whatever I was reading. I…
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…
Three art teachers from Brown Deer High School in Brown Deer, Wisconsin share their perspectives on teaching and learning.