I’m hard on my students, but it’s for a reason. I’m pushing them to be better and want them to be successful. I get notes from a lot of the students that are like, ‘We appreciate how you push us and how you want us to do better.’

My expectations of students are high. They have to write and read a lot. During class, we’re working the whole 90 minutes. It’s not an easy class, and you’re going to work for it.

The students respond so well to being pushed and being challenged. They appreciate it enough to write notes about it and say, ‘Thank you for having those high expectations that made me feel like I was here for a reason.’ That’s how I know I’m doing the right thing.

I want to be part of their experience. I feel like everybody has at least one or two teachers, when they think back, where they remember, ‘Oh, I had this English teacher this one year that changed me.’ It fills me with hope, knowing that there are young people here and I made a difference in their lives, whether they realize it today or in 10 years. Sometimes it’s hard because they’re so young, and they don’t really get it. They don’t get what’s so special about their experiences that they’re having right now, but in the future, they will.

They’re gonna be fine. They’re gonna push through just like every other generation did. They’re going to get to that point where they’re adults, and they’re going to be making decisions, and then we’re gonna be good. We just gotta keep fighting.

I got Rookie of the Year last year, which is like Teacher of the Year but for first-year teachers. My boss’s boss’s boss came in and observed me on my first day. And every time he’s seen me since that first day, he says, ‘I remember when I came in on your first day, you looked so scared. And then I came back the next time, and I didn’t even recognize you. You turned the whole class around.’

I have a strong sense of ownership over my class — a sense of pride. I believe in all my kids and I hold them to high expectations, because I know they can get there. And if they act like a worm in the hallway, I will not accept it: ‘You know the rules, you know the expectations, so fix it, and we can move on from it.’ When you look at my class from last year, they are thriving in first grade. They are set up for success and they know the expectations.

Now, I don’t know if that sense of pride will stay with them forever. I’m only one teacher. But what they learn in this classroom is magical.

When I was in my prep program, I was lucky to have coaches coming in at least two or three times a month watching us in action, telling us things that we could do, providing us with new research on teaching. But that type of coaching doesn’t continue, and many teachers never receive it to that extent.

Teachers have all these observations and these criteria that we have to meet, and the criteria is forever changing and continuous. The coaching part, however, is not continuous. So we have teachers being judged without coaching on ways to improve.

It’s difficult for early-career teachers, but think about later-career teachers: imagine getting your degree in education 10 years ago, and then teaching for 10 years while all the frameworks change. And not only that, but the children change. Students 10 years ago had a different childhood than students today. So if I’m still teaching based on what I learned 10 years ago, teaching is going to continue to get harder for me. And that’s what we see a lot of now: teachers are not being given the resources or the preparation that we need to truly address the needs of students in this day and age.

Today, these kids talk about everything. They have exposure to everything. And a lot of adults are afraid of that level of exposure. It gives kids a level of curiosity that allows them to ask questions that I couldn’t have even fathomed. And as adults, it gives us the opportunity to provide them with an appropriate understanding for their age, versus them having to learn some version from their friends.

When students ask me questions, I don’t word vomit in reply. I think carefully about the things I’m going to say. When I need to have a tough conversation with kids, I try to make them the leader of the conversation, and I try to just be the facilitator. I ask them questions to help them build thoughtful answers on their own.

As teachers, our job is not to give kids ideas as much as it is to teach them how to create their own ideas. And so that’s what I try to do.

In my last year of graduate school, I was trying to figure out what to do with my life. I had done an internship at a middle school and another at a juvenile justice center and I knew I loved working with children. I had been planning to go into the corporate world, but then I changed gears and applied to teacher training programs. I heard back very quickly from Urban Teachers [City Teaching Alliance] and became part of the first cohort to work in the D.C. public school system.

Because I was coming from another master’s program, I wasn’t intimidated by the workload. I found myself very immersed in the lives of my students, helping out with after school programs. I really connected with my host teacher and I had some amazing coaches who really shaped my values.

I remember not being able to sleep the night before I got my own classroom. What would my class be like? Was I prepared enough? I wound up having a great class that first year. There were some really great thinkers and they gave me a lot of support as a new teacher. I still talk with three of the students. They’re sophomores now.

Now I’m teaching at a middle school, a reading intervention class for grades 6 to 8. Every day I feel like I made the right choice, to take part in Urban Teachers [City Teaching Alliance] and become a teacher. I can tell by the way the students respond to me, and the way they interact with me, that I’m doing a good job. Every year that I push through, I learn something new about myself and that makes me even more excited to do the work.

Although it’s been years since I finished the Urban Teachers [City Teaching Alliance] program, I’m still part of this rich community. We support each other and we learn from each other.

I went to George Washington and majored in international affairs. During my senior year, I worked in a kindergarten classroom three times a week with D.C. Reads and I realized I loved teaching. I wanted to stay in D.C. to teach. I knew that the schools were some of the worst in the country, and part of the problem is that teachers are so transient there. I wanted to stay and teach.

I was thrilled when I found Urban Teachers [City Teaching Alliance]. I knew a summer of teaching prep wouldn’t be enough. I didn’t want to just be thrown into a classroom with children and not be able to do right by them. I wanted to find out how to be an effective teacher, not a babysitter or a sage on a stage.

My residency year I spent at Center City Brightwood in a third-grade classroom. I had an amazing host teacher. After my residency, they hired me as the first-grade lead teacher. I was at Brightwood for six years. It was nice to be at the same school for my entire tenure. I was a family engagement lead and took part in several fellowships. Urban Teachers [City Teaching Alliance] prepared me for that. You learn how to manage a workload for sure, but it also sets you up with the right mindset and tools.

There was always a really strong Urban Teachers [City Teaching Alliance] presence at Brightwood; it really made an impact on our school community. You can really spot those who come with Urban Teachers [City Teaching Alliance] training and experience. There’s that culture of being data-driven and focused on continual improvement.

Last year was my first year as a curriculum manager at our central office for the charter system. It’s been really interesting. I’ve been able to go to different conferences around the country and see what the issues are. Being growth-oriented, improvement-oriented has really set me up to try new things. But I miss students every day. I miss the coziness of a classroom. It’s a world. It’s home. I try to go back there a couple of times a month and I always make a point to stop in and see my former students.