Bienvenidos!

Yes, that's right, bien-venidos. Welcome! Yes that's right, I'm becoming more and more versed in the Spanish language and find myself incorporating it into everyday vernacular... compliments of the many Hispanic students I have in my class. Which brings us to the reason for this blog...

(...Drumroll...) Teachin' ain't easy, but somebody gotta do it! Ain't that the truth. Many people ask me how I'm doing or want to know all of the horror stories expected from teaching in high schools of lower income communities. Well, I'm tired of retelling these stories so I will instead write so that you may read (one of my goals, even as a math teacher, is to improve literacy so there ya go). Not only am I attempting to create a source for those who care to follow along with my travels, but I also like the idea of keeping this electronic journal of my experiences for myself throughout this entire experience. I would be deceiving you if I failed to mention one last reason, please save judgment because do remember I am a teacher, which is to make a little bread. So please, feel free to click away at the ads you may see! Who knows, you might really win that new iPhone by only completing 3 subscriptions in as little as 5 minutes....

So for those who don't know, or do know, or heck don't care my name is Mr. Harrison, proud Duke University graduate with a BSE in Mechanical Engineering and Materials Sciences that has forgone an illustrious engineering career path in order to join Teach for America. What is Teach for America you may ask?? Well they take "motivated" and "talented" graduates and place them into low income schools in order to overcome this problem they like to refer to as the "achievement gap". What is the achievement gap you say? It's when I walk into my Algebra II class and ask my students to subtract 2 from 1 and they have no clue what the answer is... and they are about to graduate with a high school diploma. This is obviously a problem, a problem I intend to work against for the next two years.

So, enough of intros, this will serve as mainly the retelling of events through Mr. Harrison's perspective, as well as probably some other random events that take place in my life that I will feel necessary to share for your enjoyment. So with that I will bid you a farewell and will be writing soon....

"No one is teaching if no one is learning"