I am celebrating because I received my Master’s Degree, Leadership in Teaching, from the College of Notre Dame of Maryland. I have now been teaching for almost two years. I’ve gone from spending my days with preschoolers exploring songs and science to discussing the European Renaissance with teenagers. It has been an exhilarating, challenging, and exhausting two years. I am feeling relieved to have made it this far. I am feeling uplifted by the experience. I am feeling like a teacher. I’ve had numerous observations from my administrators, my teacher certification program, people from the central office, ...

On Monday I gave the best lecture ever to my students. I’m calling it the “Mother’s Day Speech” from now on. I had them trembling, cowed, even a little afraid of me. Here’s what happened: I had to leave one of my classes in the hands of a substitute teacher. The students knew there was going to be a sub, and I had reviewed the assigned tasks to them ahead of time. I was attending a meeting during this class, and students knew I was in the building. Still, they reverted to toddlerhood in my absence, apparently ...