Welcome!

     First of all, let me welcome you to my blog, Diamonds in the Rough and while I do pride myself on being an excellent writer, this blog is meant to be a "real" approach to teaching in the inner city so the language will vary and often times my grammar will not be perfect. I apologize ahead of time if that bothers you. I have chosen to name my blog Diamonds in the Rough for a very specific reason. As a teacher of inner city school children who are surrounded by some of the roughest neighborhoods, parents who are addicted to crack, families who are involved in gang violence and more, the most important thing I want my students to focus on is that they are the diamond in their rough. Their environment will harden them beyond belief.  However the more they endure and strive to overcome their circumstances the more they will shine when they do. They will become the diamonds that everyone will seek out to surround themselves with
.
     I decided to create this blog after noticing that with the growth of common core curriculum and the emphasis on STEM classes, social studies is slowing being pushed to the wayside or morphed in to another language arts class. The amount of resources available are limited in terms of inner city focused on students who are often three or more levels behind in terms of reading and comprehension. As I move through the remainder of this year and on, I will link, post, take pictures of any and all lessons and worksheets I use in our classroom. There are websites out there that provide worksheets but very few will tell you how to modify and differentiate those worksheets and whether or not they worked within the classroom.

Let me explain the set up of available technology within my classroom so that you are aware of the types of lessons available. I have a projector, a computer, 3 desktops that are about 6 years old, an elmo and some netbooks available to use. My school is not a 1 to 1 school and using the internet for research must be planned out. There are no ipads, ipod touches, tablets or anything available for the students to use. My school provides folders and notebooks for the students at the beginning of the school year to use and often I find myself being responsible for pencils and other writing utensils. We have 100% of our student population on free lunches. I do want to make it known that our school jumped two spots on the school performance assessment put forth by the state.

Social studies is without a doubt the one class that is the foundation for citizenship. I am not bashing or attempting to put down any other subject areas as they all have value. I am simply stating that without social studies, students would not understand why the concept of a heliocentric universe is not witchcraft punishable by death or why a woman who can read is not a rebel. They would not know why our classes are multicultural and multiracial.  For those of you that are teachers welcome, I will answer any questions you ask and post and am a phenomenal resource seeker so I will help any way I can. Maybe this blog will help you discover your Diamond in the Rough because remember, to your students, that Diamond may just be you.
From the Ron Clark film