ACT English with D Zenani M.

Some might refer to me as a veteran educator because I taught high school English for nearly 15 years and have been in the education field for 20 years. Ugh. When I think of veteran teachers, I think of teaching the same old curriculum, implementing the same old teaching and learning methods for 10, 20, or even 30 years, even though children’s learning needs have long changed. I think of lounge lizards--teachers’ lounge lizards who hang out where ideas, innovations, and love for children go to die. So, I like to think of myself as a visionary educator who has enjoyed creating educational experiences for students to reveal what’s possible for them and within them. My path in education has been a deep and curvaceous one: from returning to school to obtain a B.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies and Masters in Cross-Cultural Education while raising two teenage boys and working as a paraeducator for San Diego Unified School District’s Race & Human Relations Program to starting my teaching career at age 40 where I taught at an alternative high school program for expelled students to founding teacher at San Diego Unified’s first early/middle college high school program, also a small alternative school to leaving public education to do the work that would better serve students and their families and that made sense to me After wading through years of professional development workshops and curriculum binders, after teaching all high school level English classes, including AP and Honors; after expanding my teaching experience (and therefore, my students’ learning experiences) way beyond my comfort zone over the years, I realized that effective teaching and learning came down to three components: relationship, structure and engagement.