In a career that requires so much, it’s often hard to balance one’s personal and professional life. Teachers give so much of themselves inside and outside of the classroom and it’s easy to feel exhausted and out of touch with yourself quickly. Thankfully, some of us are lucky enough to know and work closely with teachers who seem to have struck a beautiful balance between these two parts of their life.

Christina Gonzalez is one of those teachers and I’m grateful each day that she’s my partner teacher. Christina and I teach together in the second grade inclusion classroom at KIPP: Lanning Square Primary. She teaches all our students but focuses especially on supporting our students with IEPs and other special needs. I’ve never met a teacher like Christina before.

She greets each child with a smile on her face and works tirelessly to figure out their strengths and weaknesses. She plans engaging activities and games for her small groups and takes advantage of every moment she can to reteach and review the skills her students need. She laughs and approaches each day with positivity and flexibility.

Perhaps most importantly, Christina does all of this while also raising a family at home. She spends evenings and weekends with her family at the park or going out to eat. Christina prioritizes time with her family and because of that she is a more balanced and loving teacher. She works hard but knows when to close her computer and focus on her family.

Being a balanced teacher, I think, is they key to sustainability in our career. So, I’m grateful for the way Christina inspires me to include and teach all students, but I’m more grateful for the way she’s shown me that teaching can be a lifelong career. She inspires to find ways to include and teach all students and to be a more creative teacher, but she also inspires me to rest and recharge.

My life as a teacher would not be the same without Christina and I hope we’re lucky enough to continue to teach and grow together.

Emily Greider, Lanning Square Primary

Juneisy, Junnie, Padilla is an outstanding teammate who goes above and beyond for students, families, teammates, and staff. You will find Junnie with multiple hats on her head, juggling different roles within the school from field trip planning to literacy turnkey! Her passion for literacy and students intertwine beautifully in her well thought out, engaging lessons. Junnie takes the literacy scope and sequence and magnifies certain units like Hispanic Heritage unit, Winter Wonderland Unit, and many others. Junnie truly models excellence and has pushed me to uphold a higher bar of excellence for myself, my team and my students.

I truly value Junnie and her ability to excel as a teacher and curriculum turnkey but nothing compares to the amount that I value her as a person. Her authenticity in building relationships with students and adults is admirable. Walk into Junnie’s room and there is a 99% chance you will find students from years past visiting for fun times or even given up their recess to see Ms. Padilla. Junnie, you are truly one in a million and you have pushed me more than you will ever know. Your motivating talks, our meaningful O3s, or just lunch in the classroom all have made a HUGE impact on my career as a teacher, GLC and future leader!

Anna Proctor, Spark Academy

We live in the days of “I want” and “What can you do for me?”  This makes it so hard to show young children how to do for others and to care and give effortlessly.  In Spelman College I have a few ways that have worked so far.  I am happy to share these tips with my fellow teachers so they can pass on the idea of fostering gratitude in the classroom.  Here are my 3 top ways that have been successful.

• Shout Out positive / Random Acts of Kindness or Gratitude. 

I like to really exaggerate when I see students doing things for each other.  This comes in a form of public flattery, kindness Dojo points, verbal affirmations, and compliment slips are some things that I’ve adopted in the classroom (little notes to say Thank you or Grateful for…).

• Have student build from scratch……..

This could mean raising funds from the ground up for things they want.  Having scholars achieve a goal for themselves is so much more rewarding than always being given a handout or prize.  When my kids want a party after hard work, I allow them to tell me what fav things they would like to have and we collaborate to get those things together, whether it be through a point system or actually raising funds.

• Read about Gratitude

This can mean random articles of people showing gratitude, YouTube stories, or personal encounters.  This seems to foster the spirit of kindness, especially when these stories involve peers their age.

End Goal: By promoting gratitude in schools, we’ll foster these kinds of connections on a much wider scale, helping both students and schools to thrive.

Here’s the latest project around Kindness in my classroom:

Taniah Louis, Seek Academy

When I first became a teacher, I wasn’t aware of the type I wanted to be; all I knew was that I wanted to teach. As the first few months went on, I observed amazing teachers. Teachers that taught with flare, fun cheers, and really dug deep into the kids minds and got their little brains working. I saw all these things and tried to figure out how I was going to do all those amazing things while still actually learning how to teach! That was hard.

It wasn’t until my second year of teaching, where I met a teacher who had the flare, the cheers, the conceptual conversations and most of all, the FUN, in the classroom. The teacher that would sit down, show me the ropes and tell me how she made this magic happen.  I found out she was a teacher who took her read-aloud books home weeks in advance, who dared to question decisions based on what was best for kids, manipulated an entire ELA curriculum for her team,  and who wasn’t afraid to get down and dirty into all content related conversations. This teacher was Ms. Brittany Davis.

Every time I walked into Ms. Davis’ room, I was in awe. I saw how much her children loved her, I saw what she was able to do with and for them. I was always watching and learning from Ms. Davis’ teacher moves, constantly in ear her asking, “How are you about to teach this lesson?”  From late night internalizations where we broke down common-core standards, to practicing crucial parent conversations, Ms. Davis provided me with the mold of what effective teaching should look, sound and feel like. Because of Ms. Brittany Davis, I have become not only a better teacher, but a better person. Thank you, Ms. Davis, for inspiring and creating a better Ms. Cheatham.

Dominique Cheatham, KURA