Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Challenging the Dominant Narrative of Veterans’ Day Through a Study of Navajo Code Talkers
Today is Veterans’ Day. This morning, I asked my students to take five minutes to draw a picture of a veteran. The majority of my students drew a white man, and I wasn’t surprised. When we searched “veteran” on Google Images, we saw the same thing. While many white men have served our country in…
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Civil Rights Remix
This year I was tasked with re-designing my usual fifth grade social studies unit. Always up for a challenge, I had a great time creating this three week unit and working with my students to try it out. Here’s what we did! Week One: Building Background Knowledge and Expanding the Narrative To kick off the…
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Ms. Green’s Class STEAM Fair Project
We had so much fun designing our class STEAM fair project! We used toy cars and tracks to focus on the concepts of force and motion. Question Can a toy car survive this drop? If not, how can we manipulate the force acting upon the car to keep it on the track? Our Hypothesis The…
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A Year in Middle School
This past year of teaching has been a wild ride. At the end of the 2017-2018 school year, I resigned from my position at UT Elementary and took on a new role teaching eighth grade US history. The school year that ensued was hard in a lot of different ways. Middle schoolers are wonderful and…
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Texas Education Alumni Conference
I am happy to be presenting again this year at the UT College of Education Alumni Conference. In 2018 I was chosen as a recipient for the Alumni Teacher Research Grant Award, and tomorrow morning I will be presenting about my work centered upon justice oriented citizenship. In the afternoon, I will be joining Saba…
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Ms. Green at NCTE 2018
I am thrilled to be presenting three different times at NCTE (National Council for Teachers of English) in Houston this weekend. You can find me… Saturday, November 17th Text Selection and Reading: Integrated Approaches to Developing Student Voice, 8:00am-9:15am, 350 D I’ll be presenting alongside four other educators to talk about the work my fifth…
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Uncovering the Dominant Narrative
So much of what we do in fifth grade at UT Elementary is surrounding the idea of dominant and counter narratives. Students are constantly identifying dominant narratives, poking holes in those stories, and looking elsewhere to uncover counter narratives that might have something different to say. But before we can get to this place, we…
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Hidden Figures
Last month, we kicked off Women’s History Month by presenting our Hidden Figures writing projects to our friends, families, and our Little Longhorn community. The kids did an amazing job uncovering the hidden histories of powerful women who have had an impact on our country and our communities. Here are some highlights! Way…
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Poverty, Homelessness, and Financial Literacy
Hey fifth graders! I am out sick today, but am wishing so badly that I could be at school with you. Please be incredibly respectful to Ms. Noble today, and follow this blog post for all of your classwork today. Station one will require you to use your reflection packet (either you already have it,…
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Thinking About Identity
This is a post for Ms. Green’s class at The University of Texas (or, as we say at UTES, “The Big UT”). Please read “Family: A History of Naming,” a short excerpt from the YA novel, The Sun is also a Star. Please read, “Hair: An African American History,” an excerpt from…
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Ms. Green's Class 