Located in the Nation's capital, the school where I teach serves the needs of a diverse community of students and families. My work is complex as I navigate how to build relationships and community across lines of difference like race, class, language, and country of origin.
As a Language Arts teacher, working with primarily English learners, my most important task as a teacher rests on my ability to fully articulate the power, complexity, and impact of language.
To communicate is to learn to advocate for oneself and one's community, and that reality is the cornerstone for what I do.
My students learn the importance of vulnerability as they develop their capacity to communicate through reading, writing, listening, and speaking. No experience is more humbling or profound than when a student's potential has been fully realized through their dedication to themselves and their pursuit of knowledge and self-expression.
My Project
My students come from all over the world, and they speak many languages. In my school, we teach students English and Spanish with the hope of having all children exit the program bilingual and bi-literate. As you can imagine, this is an incredibly challenging task, especially when you lack the necessary resources to support this kind of development.
We are in desperate need of classroom globes.
Almost all of my lessons end up having some sort of geography component, and it is so important that my students can physically place where the events in a text or lesson are happening in the real world. As well, my school has a significant population of international students, and everyone is always trying to explain the origins of their families and cultural lineage. Globes will give us the opportunity to explore how geography connects to our cultures, families, and identities.
Right now, I have one globe for the classroom, which is not nearly enough for all students. I am requesting five globes, so one globe can be shared with each table group. These globes will help reduce the globe-to-student ratio so that students can work with a few classmates instead of trying to share this material between 20 children.
DonorsChoose is the most trusted classroom funding site for teachers.
As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mr. Norton and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
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