shelly fryer and positive tomorrows
Fryer teaches at “Positive Tomorrows", an elementary school for homeless children. In her blog post “The Challenge and Opportunity” she talks about how teachers at the school need to be “trauma informed.” These students have unbelievable things going on in their lives outside of the classroom, that means that the way things are run on the inside of the classroom need to be different.
What Shelly Fryer does every day is extraordinary. Her students know how much she cares about them and how much she believes in them and their future. I am thankful that she shares what she does so that others can learn from her selflessness and her hard work and be motivated to do the same wherever we are.
What Shelly Fryer does every day is extraordinary. Her students know how much she cares about them and how much she believes in them and their future. I am thankful that she shares what she does so that others can learn from her selflessness and her hard work and be motivated to do the same wherever we are.
By building a supportive, loving, accepting as well as engaging and challenging classroom culture, I know I can help positively impact the life trajectory of my students.
I was able to get a peek into her classroom through the podcasts that they record together. They call the podcasts room 108 Radio show. I listened to “Where do you learn best in our classroom” and "what do you like about school”. I loved hearing the students’ answers, but I especially loved Fryer’s commentary at the end. At the end of "where you learn..." she talked about how the first week has been a time of learning about one another through sharing and art projects. They have a “good news, bad news” sharing time in the morning and have played a lot of community building games. From listening to two of these few second podcasts I felt like I got a glimpse into her classroom. The use of a podcast let the students’ voices be heard, and the students she teaches need to understand that they have a voice in the world.
Fryer is an advocate for technology and social media integration and many strategies on how to teach children with severe poverty.
She continually invites the world to look at what her and her students are doing. Join in by following her on Twitter, blog, Flickr, and YouTube! Thank you Shelly Fryer for all you do for your students and sharing it with the education world! |