2021-2022 Teaching Reflection

I have recently taken some time to reflect on my first year teaching high school history (2021-2022). I thoroughly enjoyed my experience and am immensely blessed to work in a top-notch school district and inspire future generations of leaders to achieve their goals. I never had a bad day in the classroom; my negative emotions evaporated whenever I walked into my classroom (which looks like a museum due to all the antiqued treasures in there!) because the students gave me energy! I labored days and nights to plan engaging, interactive activities for my students, where they had unique opportunities to learn writing, collaboration, and oral communication skills - skills that they will need to succeed in college. During my lectures, I elaborated on the key concepts, answered every student question, and drew many connections between the historical events and my students' prior knowledge. Moreover, we consistently practiced multiple-choice, document-based, and longer-essay questions in preparation for the AP exam. Most of my fabulous students took the exam and performed very well - 61% of my students passed with a score of a 3 or higher, while 33% of those students received a commended score of a 4 or 5. Regardless of the exam scores, I was very proud of all my students, who went above-and-beyond in their classwork, learned new skills that they will further develop in their lifetimes, and (hopefully) found a new appreciation for United States history! I am incredibly thankful for the support that I received during my first year at Coppell ISD, including from Diane de Waal, Kevin Casey, Laura Springer, Kim Pierce, as well as the staff at iTeach (my alternative teacher-certification program - which was a significant amount of after-school work!) and Mr. Roy Culberson. This year (my second year teaching high school history and fourth year overall in public education), I have been tasked to teach APUSH and regular U.S. history... I am very fortunate to again have wonderful students who are passionate about education and enthusiastic to learn history! I am really looking forward to continue to change the world in a positive, profound manner, one step at a time. I have put some photographs from last year in this blog post, all from my collections.

The first day of my 2021-2022 school year; last year was my first teaching high school students. I fell in love with my job and have since reconfirmed my decision in staying at Coppell High School for 30 years!!

Phoenix & May were stellar students and performers - May sewed a colorful Antebellum-Era dress by hand for a project! I was honored to be their outstanding, favorite teacher at the theater's teacher appreciation night last year!

My swimmers have a special place in my heart since I used to be a swimmer. Aaryak was a terrific AP student and a gold-medal swimmer in the pool. I enjoy watching swim meets (and this make me miss the sport I used to devote many hours to...).

Shereef, Riva & Aditya presented me with a framed portrait of the Queen at the end of last year (I used to talk about the Queen and Royal Family a lot in class). I now have a "shrine" to the Queen behind my desk.

Alejandro was a super-star in the classroom and on the soccer field!! I was very proud of his academic accomplishments, and humbled to have been recognized as his teacher at the soccer teacher appreciation game last year.

Lillian was a quiet yet studious scholar. She was also a tremendously-talented athlete on the soccer field. I was recognized for being an outstanding teacher at a soccer game last year.

Addison was a diligent scholar and star athlete on the volleyball court!! I thoroughly enjoyed watching several of her JV (and now varsity) volleyball games. I was honored to be Addison's teacher at the volleyball teacher appreciation nights in 2021 & 2022.

My APUSH 2nd period were my loudest class yet they always did their work. They were also my "role-model" class because Mr. Culberson from iTeach monitored my teaching during this class (the students were on their best behavior on those observation days!).

My APUSH 1st period... although the class was early in the morning, this group of students knew how to make me laugh and concentrate on loving history! They were a fantastic group of scholars.

Mr. Andrew Schultz was a cheerful, motivated scholar and athlete. I was honored to be his APUSH teacher and recognized at a baseball game last year! Go Cowboys!!

This group of young ladies were wonderful students and knew how to make me laugh and smile (even on my bad days!). Pictured are Nivi, Mithilia, Hanvitha, and Shivani.

A photo of myself with three top-notch AP students, Priyanka, Brianna, and Aaron. All three of them were consistently smiling when they entered my classroom!

Phoenix was one of my best APUSH students and a talented individual. I saw them perform in a silent performance of "Lord of the Flies" and it was AMAZING!

One of my Sidekick students Nandini took this action shot when I was presenting material on the American Revolution. I am not the best with technology, yet my students were able to help me resolve tech-related issues.

Dhruva was only a sophomore when he took my junior-level AP class, yet he showed great maturity and academic excellence. His hard work in class paid off when he scored a perfect 5 on the AP exam.