How are the Children?

I am thrilled to say that my children are beyond well! Institute has been an insanely intense journey but I am sincerely grateful for everything it threw at me. At the beginning of summer school each child was assessed and given a growth goal based on how much progress they need to make to be successful in the next academic year. I am proud to say that after four short weeks, my kiddos reached 95% of their growth goal.

Before going in, the majority of advice I was given was to not get my hopes up. "Teach For America will tell you that you'll make an incredible amount of progress but be realistic, not that much can change in four weeks." Well, more progress was achieved in my classroom than I could have ever imagined! I'd like to say it was the teaching they received but it was my kids, who are so, so SO smart!

My Institute experience was what it was (as best as it could be) because of my collab, made up of myself and three amazing ladies. Janet from Harvard, Alyssa from Niagra (a syracuse townie (: ) and Ashley from University of Maryland. Janet and Ashley will be teaching Kindergarten in Baltimore and Alyssa will be teaching early childhood in Miami. All I can say to this is that the kids they will have are extremely lucky. I learned so much from watching these ladies teach, seeing the love they had for our children, and I know I will be bringing a little bit of each of them to my kids in the fall. Kindergarten is a magical time, and these ladies, with the help of our kids, helped open my eyes to the importance of early childhood. It is after all, the place where our kids become invested in their own education. Yea, our little girls may want to be princesses, but school is important to them because they have to be able to read their fan male and respond. If we don't make this connection for them, who will?

Thank you collab 205 for the impact you have made on my life.