Now in My Twenties

This text was originally written in May 2016 for Teach For America purposes. Now that my TFA commitment is coming to a close, I have decided to publish my Articulation of Leadership and share with my fellow teachers in hopes that it might express the importance of our work and inspire teachers to continue teaching. ... The academic school year 2015 through 2016 was a year of many changes. I started my new career as an educator; before I had been an editor. This was a big jump for me. I went from reading and editing books every day to teaching children how to read. The decision to change careers was not an easy one, but I knew without a shadow of doubt that I wanted to teach. More specifically, I wanted to teach literacy. Truth is: I love reading and writing. I love it so much that I want to share it with the rest of the world. And there is no better place to begin than in the classroom. My students sharing and celebrating a book we published   titled The Day the Students Too...

Looks like it is my unpopular belief that candy is one of the worst motivators in teaching. Let’s just think about this for a bit. Candy, literally pure SUGAR, is a common method teachers use to motivate students to work. Forget the fact that candy is a direct way to harm a child’s health; candy is no different than any other type of currency for children. You are paying them to be students. Teachers using the candy-motivation strategy are failing their students. They are sending the wrong message. If your goal is to help students motivate themselves, it won’t be accomplished by throwing candy their way. It is such a short-term effect that using it in the classroom won’t make any difference in student motivation. If, in fact, student motivation is your goal, then you need to create an atmosphere of positive learning. If you want students to care, if you want students to motivate themselves, the motivators you offer them as a teacher should not be extrinsic, but rather intrinsi...