Celebrating Failure in Rm 613

When I was hired at Minarets High School, I was asked to establish and teach the Minarets Cs class, a freshmen introduction course to help the 9th graders adjust to life at Minarets. Naturally, we always have a discussion  about the Minarets Cs, the learning objectives for students which include the 21st century skills as well as a vital addition: Community. During our discussion last year, we talked about which of the Cs were most common on campus and least common; creativity was the most common while community was the least common. This lack of community involvement was not only recognized by the students, but our staff as well. As a result, the staff members at Minarets High School decided to do something innovative and dedicate the last day of the fall semester to the community, appropriately named Community Day. Rather than submitting final projects or having a movie day, every student was engaged in a community project, whether it was making gift tags and cards for kids a...

Last year I had my Woodlake students complete a DBQ regarding Progressivism, where they had to argue which 20th century issue they would invest their million dollars into. As always, I had students finish significantly earlier than others so I quickly threw together another project where they had to create a poster describing a current issue that they felt needed attention. This was meant to keep the early finishers occupied, but turned into a project that the students became excited about: Ebola by Mikayla Juvera New iPhone Concerns by Ramiro Padilla North Korea by Henry Pfaff Unfortunately, because of pacing and an upcoming benchmark, we couldn't invest much time into the project, but I wished that one day I could do this project on a big scale. Then a year later, my wish was granted when I was offered my dream job at Minarets High School, a school dedicated to project-based learning. I knew immediately that one of my projects would be focused on muckraking curren...

A new job means changes: new colleagues, new classroom, new students, new way of doing things. I knew Minarets High School was different, but that is an understatement. You don't know different until you have experienced full on #mustangpride and after my first two weeks at Minarets I believe I'm finally overcoming my culture shock. The entire school culture is based around one thing: the students. Its not about test scores, learning strategies, or convenience; its about doing what is best for the students. I didn't think that this would be such a shock to me, but it is truly something amazing to see an entire campus that is focused on the needs and wants of the students. Because students have a strong voice in the school, they have completely different behaviors. For starters, they are incredibly open and friendly. It must be of the confidence of feeling valued that they are so willing to hug you and tell you everything about themselves or even participate in a dance p...

A few weeks ago I taught my students about choices; how unlimited wants and limited resources force us to make decisions. This is the basis of economics and dictates every person's life, whether they know it or not. Just like every other person, I too have to make choices in my life, whether professional or personal. So I'm excited to announce that this fall I will be teaching social science at Minarets High School ! For the longest time, Minarets has been my dream school with their deep integration of edtech and project based learning. I fell even more in love with it when I presented there for the Google Summit in May so when I found out about a social science position opening up I eagerly put in my application. I'm so excited for what the future holds for me at Minarets High School with all the new things I have learn, new people I get to meet, and new students I get to teach. Despite my joy, I'm heartbroken to leave Woodlake High School, the place of my first ...