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The Moral Arc of the Classroom

Disclaimer: I am an urban, black millennial with gay parents. You can just GUESS my political affiliations. I really, REALLY didn't want to teach my subjects this year. Like at all. I really love American History. I love this constitution & this country. I teach it with joy. Even the bad parts, because that's apart of the history of this country. How can we grow if we never know the past? But how can I teach little brown kids about a country who appears to have learned very few lessons between 1865-2017? I realized, half the people (on both sides) have zero, or next to zero, knowledge of history. This gives me purpose. Someone has to teach history. All sides. Someone has to give all the facts. I also realized that my energy is wasted trying to change old, white folks minds. Like I tell my students, no one who HAS power and likes the way it is wants to give it to you. It's really easy to get stuck and comfortable. You have to go within the systems to dismantl...
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Revolutionary Idea: Assign Less Homework

Homework. A heavily contested subject. Ask any secondary teacher and they have.a theory on homework. I have found that many teachers base their notions of homework on how they received homework in secondary school. If they were honor students, teachers have a hard time distinguishing their experience from their students' experiences (let's admit, our students aren't all running home to do their homework and get As.). If the teacher struggled to do homework in high school, they are much more understanding, but due to the pressures of curriculum and standardized testing, assign just as much homework. Even the "former slacker turned teacher" can be frustrated when a student returns without a name on the paper. I have also found that many teachers take pride in making their classes almost impossible and monopolizing much of the students' time. These teachers fail to realize the impact they are having on the other classes that the student may be taking. Chances are...
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who are you & why are you starting a blog

First things first, I should introduce myself. My name is Chelsee and I am a secondary history teacher. I've been teaching for five years and I've taught everything from 7th grade English Language Arts & Reading to AP Literature to now AP Human Geography, AP Government & Politics and AP Macroeconomics. As you should know with teaching -- this could all change next week. I didn't come to teaching because I wanted to become Michelle Pfeiffer in Dangerous Minds or that dude in Stand & Deliver; the grotesquely condensed film that makes it look like he was super-teacher overnight. I found myself graduating from college in 2012 and I had no real plan for what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to keep studying stuff to study stuff because books are fun. I spent the better part of college studying things for the sake of studying them. (Seriously, who sees Religious Studies and is like ohhh that sounds fun, lets do that). So, I decided - since everyone in Claremo...
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