My New Favorite Teacher!

This is Stephanie! If Stephanie looks familiar to you, it's because I've featured her in my blog over the years. I helped fundraise for her a few times years ago, so that she could make it to some leadership conferences. Then two years ago, I saw her at her college graduation celebration. Well, she is now in proud possession of a master's degree: from Johns Hopkins University!!! And, as if that weren't enough, she's going back for another master's, this time in public health. Did I mention that she's been teaching full-time during grad school? This young woman is amazing and I am so proud to know her.

We had lunch this week, and shared stories about teaching in a high-need, low-income area. She's teaching in Baltimore and her stories sound just like mine from Oakland, if not more so. She had three principals her first year and has quickly become a teacher leader just because things needed to get done. It really resonated with my 8 principals and 5 superintendents in 8 years and becoming the senior teacher at age 31.

We have a lot in common, but significant differences in our backgrounds as well. While I certainly had good intentions and went into teaching with my whole heart, I had to unlearn a lot of implicit bias and come to terms with white middle-class privilege. We talked about that too - the bias in education and the devastating inequity between majority-minority schools and majority-white schools.

Stephanie is a phenomenal person and I have no doubt that she's a stellar teacher. But she's still contending with what all teachers in underserved areas have to deal with: 8th graders who can barely read, middle schoolers who are pregnant, CPS reports, lack of supplies, overcrowding, and so so so much need.She's doing the hard work, but we can help by fulfilling her Amazon wish list! Please donate!

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A Loss

(I have been putting off finishing this blog post for months. You'll see why) Today, I was cleaning a bookshelf and I found the journal from one of my third-grade students, who I call Fred in my book , in 2001. I still had it because he didn't come to the last day of school to get his stuff this year and I guess it got put in a pile and somehow I've kept it with me. He didn't come to the last day of school, probably because his family was a mess: dad in prison, mom in an abusive relationship, all the kids (understandably) acting out violently. Fred was expelled from our school in second grade for hitting a teacher. Then he was expelled from the other school, I don't know why, at the end of second grade. He came back on the condition from the administration that he be in my class because I had him as a student in first grade and he listened to me and worked well with me. We had a really good relationship, although Fred was definitely not easy to have in class....

A New Prison, Part Two

Second very long part of the prison visit report. After we got all the paperwork filled out and went through the metal detector, we got visitation slips with the name of the inmate, and made our way over to the other building for visitation. This is not maximum security so thankfully you can just sit next to the inmates, and not be separated by glass or have to use a telephone to talk. First, you get a gate unlocked and go into a holding pen that is of course in direct sunlight (or rain if it's that season) and surrounded by fences topped with razor wire. You wait there until the gate at the other end is unlocked. This holding pen was a little bigger and less claustrophobic than the other prison (I do not have any claustrophobia and I came very close to a panic attack once at the other place) and they opened the other gate more quickly. Then you walk, again in blazing sunlight (or rain) to the visitation building. This one was less of a walk than the other pri...

A New Prison, Part 1

My former student, friend, and co-author was moved to a new prison during COVID. We (myself, Mitali, and his Abuela) have visited a couple of times via the video visit functionality they set up, but we've also been trying to visit in person, ever since in-person visits were allowed again. After four of them being canceled (sometimes we were told why, sometimes not), we finally got a visit. I was super nervous about this visit. (I felt better when Mitali mentioned that she was also, because she is an inherently positive and optimistic person!) I am not proud of this, but there was a large part of me that was hoping that the visit would be canceled, just like the previous four were. I felt a little better when someone I know messaged me privately to tell me that they had had very good experiences visiting a family member in that prison. But I still didn't sleep well at all that night, worrying about the guards, the many things that could go wrong, and the projected 111-degree hea...

Bronwyn Harris, Author

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