An Instructional Best-Practices Blog
Salsa music filled the air as students walked into Spanish I at North Star Academy Washington Park High School in Newark on a recent morning. One by one, they greeted their teacher, Mya Rodriguez-Mendoza, with “Buenos días” and opened their laptops. But instead of tackling a traditional lesson, they dove into something new: Creating a … Continued
In Jerard Walker’s essay, Dragon Slayers (The Iowa Review, 2006), Walker reflects on his journey as a black professor who realizes that black literature is too often approached as a record of oppression. After deep introspection, he designed his classes to challenge that narrative with a focus on the flip side: black courage and heroism. … Continued
Four years ago, I received an email from a teacher regarding a middle school history lesson about the tenuous relationships of the Dominican Republic and Haiti, in which key Haitian perspectives were not accurately included. The teacher, who identifies as being both Dominican and Haitian, knew the importance of including the complete perspectives of both … Continued
