The Intersection: Culture and Race in Schools
Christina Torres is an 8th Grade English Teacher at Punahou School in Honolulu, Hawaii. She has worked with Teach For America, Hope Street Group, the Center for Teacher Quality, and Teaching Tolerance. Find her online: Teach. Run. Write. This blog is no longer being updated.
Education
Opinion
'Those Kids:' Understanding Trauma-Informed Education
It's easy to look at "difficult" populations as "those kids"-- but, more importantly, "those kids" are OUR kids, and they are KIDS. They deserve an amazing education designed with understanding who they are.
Equity & Diversity
Opinion
Hold Your Tension: Gender, Sexuality, and Comedy in the #NanetteSyllabus
'Nanette' powerfully weaves humor, art history (!), comedy theory, gender, sexuality, and the power of storytelling together. How do we use it in the classroom?
School Climate & Safety
Opinion
What Can I Do Now?: A Teacher's Summer Struggle
As infuriating as the current U.S. news is, there's not much I can do as a teacher right now. The one thing I can do is prepare to hit the ground running next year.
Education
Opinion
Heartbreaking Conversations With Students: Student Voice and Value
Schools are our students: living, breathing, growing, hurting and hoping all at once
Equity & Diversity
Opinion
When the Stories Feel Too Hard to Teach
What happens when we as teachers are triggered by the texts we are teeaching? What happens when the stories feel too hard to teach?
Education
Opinion
Slow and Steady: Valuing Conversations That Don't End Neatly
I think things are getting better. Not easier, but better. Still, we can't shy away from conversations that we know may be a little messy.
Education
Opinion
Uncovering What Was Lost: The 'On Teaching' Project
We live in a world where, sometimes, it feels like educational buzzwords and the newest fads overtake our concept of "good education."
School Climate & Safety
Opinion
What Schools Can Learn From Starbucks (and Vice Versa)
Unlearning the hurtful lessons we have internalized about racism will take more than just a half-day training.
Equity & Diversity
Opinion
Fighting for Mirrors: Supporting Diverse Stories in Classrooms
I still remember the first time I read a piece of writing that felt like it truly understood me. I was a junior in high school.
School Climate & Safety
Opinion
'Wakanda Curriculum' Is Exactly What Teachers Should Be Teaching
We must ask ourselves not just how to make our classrooms engaging, but how to ensure it is culturally-responsive, actively relevant, and helping kids envision a world in which their identity, voice, and culture are important.
Education
Opinion
Who Gets to Be Heard?: Questions in the Wake of Parkland
We must begin asking ourselves why and how we have begun listening now.
Education
Opinion
A Teacher's Response to Parkland: 'I Don't Know How to Protect You Anymore'
How can I tell my students that while I'd move mountains for them, I know my body is just as feeble against bullets as theirs?
School Climate & Safety
Opinion
Who Are 'America's Children'?
We are, at our foundation, a nation of immigrants and native peoples displaced by systemic oppression.
School Climate & Safety
Opinion
Choices, Charters, and Competition: Why I Hope We Think Before We 'Start' Charter Schools
Is the work we're doing really driving innovation? Or is it a band-aid on a gushing wound of educational inequity?