My dad attended a school vastly different from mine. He grew up in Spain and learned multiplication tables by singing them in a classroom chorus led by a priest. I learned my multiplication tables by using flashcards.
As a kid, I remember arguing with my dad about math homework. Specifically, it was about problem-solving in algebra: my teacher had taught me one way to solve problems, and my dad wanted to show me an easier way. I would listen to my dad (probably not for long) and then, frustrated, huff and puff that I was going to “do it the teacher’s way” because his way was confusing. Continue reading
Luciana is a 9th grader who arrived in the U.S. in 2016 from the Dominican Republic. She wears a sparkly pink headband, has perfect attendance, and occasionally causes mischief.
“Miss, can I leave at 1:30 to go to a job interview at McDonald’s?”
In one of our English as a New Language classrooms,* students were given index cards with the task “Describe yourself in six words,” and then instructed to post the cards on a bulletin board. The cards said so much: “I miss my friends in Vietnam,” “I want to be a doctor,” “I think more than I speak.” One was written by Carlos, who came to this country last year from the Dominican Republic: “The things are not so easy.” 
Classroom 325 