Media And Technology Program Evaluation Rubrics: Fill & Download for Free

Thanks for the A2A.From the description you provide, you will already have completed the most competitive program at your school by the time you graduate. Admission officers will record this achievement in some way early on in your evaluation. Every study that has been deemed credible demonstrates that academic program combined with GPA provides the best prediction of success in university classes. Of course, as you no doubt know, highly selective schools will look at far more than your academic program and perfect grades. If I had to guess I would say be your standardized testing is strong too. All told, academically, you have what it takes to get a close read at any highly selective university or college.I am, however, going to address some things that might affect the decision whether you want to take the self-study APs or do something else instead. I know what I am going to write is politically incorrect, but that does not mean it might not be worth thinking about (or responding to, for those who disagree).You attend a small private school that has a strong reputation among colleges and universities. That is the good news. But it is also true that you attend a small private school in a posh community. By this I mean that you are going to be held to higher standards because of your privilege (unless you are on a scholarship and low income.) If you read the comments by many in education today, including those in admission, the label of privilege is applied to students in ways that make it clear that there is at least modest disdain and in some cases outright hostility to students who are perceived to have an unfair advantage over those who do not have the economic class or educational background to attend private school or enroll in private test prep, or a host of other things that almost all cost money. Your zip code and school are not necessarily going to curry favor among all admission officers. There are far too many counselors that throw the term privilege around as though it were a fault to live in a community and family with substantial resources. Orwell might well have written about this were he alive today.In addition, you are in a couple of other bad demographics. You are in New Jersey and you are a female. I grew up in New Jersey and loved it, so I am not putting down the Garden State, but the reality is the population density is high and there are not nearly enough highly selective colleges, either public or private, to fulfill the demand. There are many great secondary schools across the State; as a result, a lot of students from New Jersey end up applying to the same set of selective schools. If you are not aware, geographical diversity is a factor in admission decisions. It is not a huge factor but it certainly does come into play in highly selective admission where even small factors end up counting for a lot. You are, therefore, going to be competing with the top students in your State (and to a similar degree, to the students in your secondary school too, as many colleges evaluate applicants within individual secondary school groups In other words if 10 students from your school apply to the same university the school will, if it is very highly selective, not offer admission to many of them no matter how good the schools—see the acceptance rates to Stanford and the Ivies for magnet schools like Thomas Jefferson High Schools for Science and Technology –what many say is the best school in the US, for some data to support this claim. U Penn, for example, initially evaluates applicants within their school group. Selective colleges want to make sure they do not offer to “too many” students from one particular school.It’s also true that females, on average, outperform males in the classroom in secondary school. Most colleges have “goals” (they would never have exact quotas as this would lead to lawsuits) in terms of the male/female ratio that they wish to enroll even if it means being more selective for female applicants. The discrepancy between the selectivity expected from males compared to females is particularly true of some small liberal arts colleges, but it is also true of some of the highly selective universities. (Of course, this is not a topic you will ever hear about in an college information session, so you will have to do some sleuthing to find out the different acceptance rates between men and women. You might ask this in an information session, but if you do don’t give your name. I am sort of kidding….)I wish I could say what I have written above is the end of the discouraging preface to my answer to your specific question. But the stats that have been reported in the NY Times and other places are compelling in what they demonstrate. Asian students have to have better numerical academic credentials than any other group, by a long shot.Things have improved a bit at the Ivies after lawsuits were filed, but the acceptance rate, and enrollment figures compared to the overall performance of Asians at top secondary schools around the US (and the world), the percentage of Asians should be much higher (see the percentage of Asians at the U Cal system, for example, since these schools are, by law, not supposed to use race in admission--nearly half the students a Berkeley and UCLA are Asian). [1]Given the stats and the research there is, at the very least, some unconscious bias against Asians. This sad fact will not change any time soon. There is very little advocacy for Asians within the secondary school or college admission communities. In fact, there are many in the profession who believe there are too many Asian at magnet secondary schools and places like UCLA and hope to use “holistic admission” in order to alter the racial composition of the schools. Major media rarely cover this issue. Because of the vague criteria that fall under the rubric of holistic admission, it is very difficult to to prove overt discrimination. Readers are taught to never write anything down that would hurt them in court but the underlying message is clear at least to some who have read for highly selective schools. But even when there is a story that details how schools subtly discriminate there is no public outcry I do not see the courts siding with Asian applicants and then awarding damages to them --something I have commented on in Harvard Magazine.Therefore, given that you are going to be held to higher academic standards, it may be to your advantage to do the extra APs in order to help you rise above the “typical” Asian student who is at the top of the class and taking the toughest courses the school offers. It shows you have gone beyond the norm of exceptional performance and courses. Or it might not.I will finally get around to your question with just one more digression. Given your last name (the one who asked me to answer this question), you have at least some Chinese heritage. I mention this since you may not be aware that in the Mainland there are hundreds of students taking AP exams who have never taken an AP course. This is due, mostly, to the fact that the schools the students attend to do not offer APs. The typical AP choices for these students in China doing self-study are Calculus, Science (Biology, Chemistry, or Physics) and American History. I have always been surprised at students in China who study for a couple of months during their final exam period of a very rigorous junior year and then earn a 4 or 5 in American History. (It would make an interesting research paper to find out what the average AP US History score is in China. My guess would be the mean score is higher than the average score in the US. The College Board is not wild about Chinese students taking APs without being in the classes, especially when they earn high scores—it undermines the description of the AP as the equivalent of a full semester college course. And it affects the income College Board brings in for the course materials etc.)I mention this because there will be some admission people reading your application who will lump you in with this group of students and assume you are taking these exams in order to show you are hard working, smart, and have standardized proof of specific subject matter There is a lot of suspicion that transcripts out of China are not accurate and there is good reason to believe this. Many admission readers are jaded when it comes to reading applications from China for a whole set of reasons, both justified and unjustified, that I won’t go into here. (I have written a lot about this elsewhere). But as to your case in particular, while you may not be judged guilty by association, you also may not be credited for taking the APs because you love to learn, in part because of the Asian bias and in part because of the China bias.If it seems I have discouraged you from taking APs on your own let me see if I can at least make a case for why you might wish to take them and how they might be recognized as a positive factor by the schools you hope to attend. More than a decade ago the meme that made its way around the information sessions and marketing materials of highly selective schools was “Love of Learning”. Every selective college school foregrounded this attribute as the quality that helped students to stand out among bright students with good numbers.Mount Holyoke College is looking for smart, ambitious women who understand the value of a liberal arts education and who are driven by a love of learning.As is typical when a meme filters down and across to a large audience, however, it became a formula rather than a useful descriptive term for individual students to describe themselves outside the numbers. The term has, nevertheless, changed the experience of almost all the students’ lives who hope to get accepted to highly selective schools.Figuring out how to game a way to demonstrate Love of Learning became “the way to get in”. One common approach to demonstrate LOL was to pile on AP courses; coursework and grades are, as stated above, the best predicators of academic success and are easy to quantify for admission officers. For example, at one highly selective university I know of, the readers ‘ evaluation form included check boxes for which AP courses the student had taken along with the scores earned on any completed prior to senior year. These data points featured prominently the decisions that were made. Therefore, those students who wished to gain entry to the most selective universities and colleges began to take on much heavier academic loads in terms of APs and even post AP classes such as multivariable calculus and organic chemistry. At the same time, the College Board was promoting the AP program by increasing the number of APs offered in a range of subjects while also encouraging all schools to be a part of the AP program. It is no surprise that more and more students starting taking APs, and doing so at an earlier point in secondary schools. It used to be very rare to see students in any AP classes in 10th grade. Now it is not unusual in students that send the vast majority of students on to 4 years schools to see students with 2 or 3 in 10th, 3 or 4 in 11th and 5 or more in 12th. Students with 10 or more APs, once almost unheard of, are a part of the top 5-10 percent of any given secondary school class in wealthy suburbs or good private schools.There has been pushback, however, by colleges who say that the students are jumping through hoops instead of doing what they are passionate about .(Passion is a relatively new meme but it too may have passed its sell by date. Passion slowly gave way to “grit” about 4 years ago, but this term now seems to have largely disappeared too in favor of the deliberately vague duo of “overcoming obstacles” and “community engagement”.With applications going up each year and the competition getting such that fewer than 10% of students are accepted, those who wish to stand out are willing to do what they think it takes to get in to the top ranked schools, including loading up on an increasing number of APs. Recently, There has been some blowback about students taking too many APs and there is some data that suggests beyond a certain number (5 or 6) they do not increase the predictive value for academic success. A report last year out of the Harvard graduate school of education, Turning the Tide, recommended that admission offices look beyond things like APs and that students should not pile them on. While this is a nice sentiment it is not pragmatically realistic. 2It is unlikely that students will get penalized for taking more than 5 APs and unless the student does not do much except study having more APs is more impressive than having just a few—if you are in the toughest subgroups vying for admission.I mention this as you will be compared to the white and Asian kids who go to these high schools and who have taken 10 or more APs. Of course, it’s not as if Asians are all interchangeable cogs, but given the fact that schools get 30,000 or more applications for a few thousand spaces applications it is hard to distinguish the minutiae of individual students in the way that schools often tout as their holistic methodology. Your having upped your AP count will assure readers that you are not a slacker taking “only” 7 APs. If this sounds like hyperbole, I have seen comments by readers at a competitive university who have written “only 6 APs” in their evaluations, and that was over 5 years ago. The competition has only increased since that time.I have spent a lot of time on what I would call the macroscopic view of how the admission process works with respect to APs and groups of students. What I have written applies to the thousands of students who fit within your demographic profile. But now let me spend a little bit on how you might take the APs and help yourself significantly as an individual.First of all, before I would give you a definitive answer to your question, I would want to know a lot more specific information about you. It is easy to give advice in general terms ,but you have experiences and circumstances that do not fit into the generic descriptions I have given. For example, if you had a choice between self-studying for the APs or taking some MOOCs (Massive On-line Open Courses) instead, I am not sure yet how I would respond. You could take MOOC coding classes if that was an interest you had—something not offered on any AP exam. There are thousands of great MOOCs out there. But some in admission are cynical about these because they think students may be gaming the process by saying they have taken them. Certificates might help dispel this preconception and they may be less expensive than the AP test fees.Or maybe you have the opportunity to do some sort of activity (I hate to name any specifically as some readers would assume the ones I name are the ‘right’ ones), that would permit you to develop one of your talents or interests be it academic, the arts service etc. Or is it possible you could do some research in a field that you have an interest in. Or maybe you cold do an internship to find out more about a potential career field. Only after talking with you and seeing what options you have and what things you are interested in would it make a lot sense to give you specific advice that will help you develop skills that will help you not so much as an applicant to schools but as a person who really is interested in learning.On the other hand, in this age of private counselors taking on students as early as grade school, things have gotten way out of hand as far as shaping children into the mold of the successful applicants to highly selective universities. I would advise you to step away from the hype and do what I advise all students to do when making choices about programs, colleges, and lots else—go Buddhist. The Buddhist saying, first thought, best thought applies here. If you really love learning, then show it. The APs might be one way, but you will also need to get some back up. I hope your college counselor can underscore this in the recommendation letter and I hope that your teachers will support this too. In addition, your essays may be opportunity to demonstrate your love of learning in concrete ways (do not say “I love learning”—demonstrate it in the story you share). In other words, your application should have support for your love of learning that extends far beyond the APs. If you do this, then all the negative things I have mentioned above will pale into the background. Now that Love of Learning is not mentioned nearly as often as it used to be, your demonstration of it in your application may be a welcome thing (it would be for me if I were reading your application).Finally, I would also say that you should try to make sure you interview at the schools that offer them. If you have a genuine love of learning you can get this across in an interview. I have seen this hundreds of times over the years. It is not that hard see the academic fire when a student begins to talk about something they really love.You should also know that almost no matter what you are going to get into a good university. Your hard work has already paid off. If, however, you define good as top 10, then you are in for a lot of stress and possible heartache, but if you expand your list a bit you will find that what have accomplished will be rewarded.Best of luck.***********************************************************************************************1. This problem is especially prevalent in Ivy League colleges, shown by a complaint filed by the Asian-American Coalition for Education (AACE) against many such schools. This complaint claims that Admissions officers “often treat Asian-American applicants as a monolithic block rather than as individuals, and denigrate these applicants as lacking in creativity/critical thinking and leadership skills/risk taking.” (AACE v. Yale, Brown and Dartmouth) The statistics prove that the applicants are entirely capable, after the Department of Education started investigating Harvard, admission rates jumped from 10.8% to 16.1% (for Asian applicants). The same effect was shown at Princeton after a student complaint, with rates jumping from 14.7% to 25.4% (Douglas Belkin, 5/23/16)2.The following report offers specific recommendations for reshaping the admissions process in each of the following three areas:RECOMMENDATIONS FOR COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT AND SERVICE The admissions process should both clearly signal that concern for others and the common good are highly valued in admissions and describe what kinds of service, contributions and engagement are most likely to lead to responsible work, caring relationships and ethical citizenship.1 Promoting more meaningful contributions to others, community service and engagement with the public good.2 Assessing students’ ethical engagement and contributions to others in ways that reflect varying types of family and community contributions across race, culture and class.3 Redefining achievement in ways that both level the playing field for economically diverse students and reduce excessive achievement pressureRecommendation #2:Awareness of Overloading on AP/IB CoursesAdmissions offices should convey to students that simply taking large numbers of AP or IB courses per year is often not as valuable as sustained achievement in alimited number of areas. While some students can benefit from and handle large numbers of AP/IB courses, many students benefit from taking smaller numbers of advanced courses. Too often there is the perception that these students are penalized in the admissions process.

“Personal branding is the practice of people marketing themselves and their careers as brands.[1]While previous self-helpmanagement techniques were about self-improvement, the personal-branding concept suggests instead that success comes from self-packaging.[1]The term is thought to have been first used and discussed in a 1997 article by Tom Peters.[2][3]Personal branding is essentially the ongoing process of establishing a prescribed image or impression in the mind of others about an individual, group, or organization.[4]Personal branding often involves the application of one's name to various products. For example, the celebrity real-estate mogul turned President of the United States, Donald Trump uses his last name extensively on his buildings and on the products he endorses. (e.g. Trump Tower). In Be Your Own Brand first published in 1999, marketers David McNally and Karl Speak[5]define personal brand this way: "Your brand is a perception or emotion, maintained by somebody other than you, that describes the total experience of having a relationship with you." Kim Kardashian has a strong personal brand since she is considered a very influential person, thus every product she endorses skyrockets in the market. Companies look to her due to the influential power she has in the media.The relationship between brands and consumers needs to be constantly made and remade, and this continuous process creates a demonstration of the ambivalence in brand cultures.[6]This same logic follows for personal brands- there is a constant desire for a reinforcement of the self-brand.ContentsHistoryEditPersonal branding, self-positioning, and all individual branding by whatever name, was first introduced in 1937 in the book Think and Grow Rich[citation needed]by Napoleon Hill. This relates specifically to Chapter 6, Organized Planning, Planning the Sale of Services, where Hill states, "It should be encouraging to know that practically all the great fortunes began in the form of compensation for personal services, or from the sale of IDEAS." The idea surfaced later in the 1981 book Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, by Al Ries and Jack Trout.[7]More specifically in "Chapter 23. Positioning Yourself and Your Career - You can benefit by using positioning strategy to advance your own career. Key principle: Don't try to do everything yourself. Find a horse to ride". It was later popularized by Tom Peters.Branding has reached a new level of imperative because of the rise of the Internet. The growth of the virtual world created the necessity of managing online identities. Despite being expressly virtual, social media and online identity has the ability to affect the real world. Because Individuals want to portray themselves a certain way to their social circle, they may work to maintain a certain image on their social media sites. As a result, social media enables the creation of an online identity that may not be completely true to the real self. (See: online identity)Today, added emphasis is placed on personal branding, especially in the online world. Employers are now increasingly using social media tools in order to vet applicants before offering them interviews. Such techniques range from searching the applicants Facebook or Twitter feed to conducting large background checks using search engines and other tools.[8]Amongst job-seekers, this is leading to a shift away from the practice of submitting a resume as part of their job application process to providing potential employers with access to a number of personal brand assets. Such assets are likely to include a resume, links to a carefully managed LinkedIn profile and a personal blog, evidence of articles which disseminate original ideas on industry blogs, and evidence of having an online following. Such efforts give job-seekers better odds of being noticed by potential employers.Goffman's self presentation theoryEditErving Goffman's Self Presentation is a key theory that explores the way people want to be seen and how people are perceived by their peers. Goffman, uses the term Dramaturgy as a component to his theory of self-presentation. This term refers to looking at your own persona as a drama, treating your actions as an actor in a play. One can control how he or she is viewed by their peers and in cases of celebrities or athletes, can build a personal brand through utilizing what they present to their publics using various social media outlets. Self-presentation theory and personal branding go hand in hand, we see celebrities and athletes building a particular brand, or persona over with the use of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat. Building a personal brand is a big part of a celebrity's life, and it can help them spread awareness and also provide an outlet to connect with their fans/supporters. This is made possible through the use of social media and the ability of the person looking to build a personal brand to make their messages heard. The theory of self-presentation looks at how people look to create an identity for themselves that they would like to be seen as by their peers or in the public eye. This is what Goffman call's the 'front stage'.The front stage is a key component of this theory and it is a way a person acts when in public or around other people to build a certain persona for how they would like others to view them. The front stage is where celebrities and athletes tend to build their own brand and show many positive, deliberate messages that will try and portray them in a certain light in which the person would like to be seen. As opposed to what Goffman refer's to as the 'back stage' which is a particular way a person acts when they are not in public or not posting on social media, trying to build a particular persona or brand they would like others to see.There are many examples of celebrities building a brand for themselves over some sort of social media platform. In fact, it is rare to see an athlete or celebrity without a social media page whether it is twitter or instagram. Celebrities use these outlets as ways of branding themselves, by showing people their lives and having fans feel close to them, almost like they are friends, and have a connection through social media outlets such as twitter and instagram. Also, to keep more of their fans interested, and to reach as many as possible many celebrities will update daily on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat so their message can be seen by a wider audience. They can keep fans informed on everything from what they want to wear, to their political views. Social Media has provided a simple way for celebrities to get their personal brand to reach a wider audience, and they utilize the 'front stage' to influence people in a particular way and to make themselves look good in the public eye.The 'back stage' is part of Goffman's theory of self-presentation theory, and it is happenings or beliefs people wouldn't want their peers or public to necessarily see or hear. These are happenings that go on behind the scenes that can oftentimes hurt someone's reputation and are avoided when a celebrity is trying to build a personal brand. These are often personal happenings, or beliefs that will negatively effect how an audience will look at the brand you are building. There are numerous examples of celebrities saying something that they didn't want their public to hear but got out and this hurts the brand they are building. One example of this is when LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling made racist comments to his then girlfriend and she had recorded them and put them on her social media.[9]Donald Sterling was quickly removed from the team and is no longer associated with the NBA. This is an example of how something in the back stage will negatively affect what you want the public to see you as.Self-presentation theory is very apparent in the world of celebrities and professional athletes and is a big part of building a brand for themselves. Goffman's theory seems to identify itself well with the personal branding of these celebrities and you can see why they would want to utilize social media to positively show a message they want to be heard by their public (front stage) and avoid more personal beliefs that may negatively effect their brand (back stage).Social mediaEditSocial media can be "roughly defined as 'a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0 and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content'".[10]Social media extends beyond just Facebook and Twitter and into the professional world as well. There are general professional profiles like LinkedIn and company or industry-specific networks, such as Slack. Because of these professional networks, self-branding is useful in finding a job or improving one's professional standing. As an online open source, social media has become a place that is fulfilled with highly reliable and resourceful information to target user identities[11].Building a brand and an online presence through internal corporate networks allows for individuals to network with their colleagues, not only socially but professionally as well. This kind of interaction allows for employees to build up their personal brand relative to other employees, as well as spur innovation within the company because more people can learn from more people.Some social media sites, like Twitter, can have a flattened, all-encompassing audience that can be composed of professional and personal contacts, which then can be seen as a more "'professional' environment with potential professional costs".[12]Because of its explicitly public nature, Twitter becomes a double-sided platform that can be utilized in different ways depending on the amount of censorship a user decides on.Personal branding focuses on "self-packaging," where "success is not determined by individuals' internal sets of skills, motivations, and interests but, rather, by how effectively they are…branded";[13]it is more about self-promotion rather than true self-expression. The difference between the two is that self-promotion is deliberately intentional in all aspects because the individual is purposely shaping their image or persona, while self-expression can even be a byproduct of promotion.[14]Aside from professional aspirations, personal branding can also be used on personal-level social networks to flare popularity. The online self is used as a marketing and promotional tool to brand an individual as a type of person; success on the virtual platforms then becomes "online social value [that could transform] to real rewards in the offline world."[14]A prominent example of a self-made self-branded social media icon is Tila Tequila, who rose to prominence in 2006 on the Myspace network, gaining more than 1.5 million friends, through expertly marketing her personal brand.[15]As social media has become a vehicle for self-branding, these moguls have begun to situate the maintenance of their online brand as a job, which brings about new ways to think about work and labor[16]The logic of online sites and the presence of feedback means that one's online presence is viewed by others using the same rubric to judge brands: evaluation, ranking, and judgment. Thus, social media network sites serve as complex, technologically mediated venues for the branding of the self.[16]CriticismsEditPersonal branding offers promises of increased success in the business world. Thousands of self-help books, programs, personal coaches, and articles exist to help individuals learn to self-brand. These strategies emphasize authenticity but framed as becoming "'more of who you are' as well as who 'you were meant to be.'[17]The other side of these 'strategies for success' is that this is very subtle self-commodification.[13]Because personal branding is basically pointing out, and in some cases, glorifying, certain positive characteristics of an individual, it is not unlike traditional branding of products and companies. This puts individuals in the place of products, in which their efforts to appear more human are subverted.[17]This possibility is exploited by celebrities and politicians, as "marketing individual personalities as products" is an effective way to gain millions of fans not just online but in real life as well.[14]For celebrities of all types, online personas are their brands. Public relations for Justin Bieber and Barack Obama alike can easily control the "brand" and maximize exposure and profitability.On the other hand, personal branding may afford potential employers the opportunity to more accurately judge a candidate's abilities and cultural suitability, since blogs, profiles, websites, etc., are pieces of work that can be evaluated.[18][19][citation needed]DisclosureEditPersonal branding involves the practice of self-disclosure, and this transparency is part of what Foucault would call "the proper care of the self".[6]In this sense, disclosure refers to the details of one's everyday life for other's consumption, while transparency is the effect of this kind of disclosure. Transparency essentially works to give viewers a complete view of one's authentic self.[6]Digitally aided disclosure, which involves building a self-brand on a social network site, relies on traditional discourses of the authentic self as one that is transparent, without artifice, and open to others. Authenticity is viewed as both residing inside the self and is also demonstrated by allowing the outside world access to one's inner self.[6]It is interesting to think about the idea of authenticity with disclosure, and the freedom social networks allow in disclosing an inauthentic self. All the while, these posting are forming a digital archive of the self, through which a brand could be crafted by others. An example of this is Carly Fleishmann, whose Twitter posting created an iconicity and brand without her ever speaking out loud.[20]Another example of a figure who rose to prominence through this disclosure is Ingrid Nilsen, who posted a video on YouTube coming out as lesbian and subsequently took off as a YouTube star.[21]Through disclosure individuals are able to go through the process of personal branding.”Definition from Wikipediaidk, I looked it up

It would be embarrassing to ask my students what they thought of my classes when I began teaching. It is probably fair to say that I am a better teacher now than when I started. By experiencing very diverse conditions, including experiments I might have avoided if I had had a choice, I became the better teacher I believe I am now.When I began teaching in Detroit elementary schools I had the privilege of observing master teachers. Their calm demeanor and validation of each student’s experience were inspiring and automatically resolved most of the classroom management issues that I found overwhelming. These teachers were black, as were my students, but even as a naïve young white guy, I could tell they were acting in ways that had more to do with being an evolved adult than being black.The master teachers were creating a safe but responsive world in deliberate contrast to the homes and shelters our students came from. They would start sentences in a normal or slightly louder tone to get attention but then get subtly softer so the students had to lean in to follow them. They asked students about their favorite TV shows and comic book characters, a topic I arrogantly assumed was a distraction. But they were drawing the students out, getting them to compose and express their thoughts, and appreciating them for doing so. I wanted to learn more from these teachers but the daily explosions of children's’ unmet needs limited my capacity to adapt. I was “under fire” both metaphorically and literally as a fellow teacher was shot in front of our school while I preparing a lesson in my classroom.I moved to teach in a Catholic high school. My stereotypes of what that would be like faded quickly. There was an all white, elite public high school near my school. The public school sent almost all its graduates to selective universities. Our school, though private and religious, was more diverse than the public school. Students were bussed in from a larger territory. Not all were Catholic as some non-Catholic parents made sacrifices to remove their children from public schools. The nuns were tough but fair and not afraid to bend the rules if they thought it would help students struggling with issues like drugs and families going through divorces. I remember a meeting with the principal and fellow teachers of my student who had missed too many days of school. The question was not about the rules. The question was what action could we take that would have the best chance of helping this student get on with her life.I experimented more with content and teaching methods at this school. I told more stories. I gave only essay tests which were clever but harder to grade and unfairly hard on my students. Rubrics were not emphasized as much then as they are now and I hadn’t learned to use them well.I began to accept the idea that I might actually be a teacher. I was still very self-conscious and saw my role as performative (how could I do or say something acceptable) and not yet how could I best enable students to discover and honor their own capacities for inquiry and mastery of whatever their curiosity led them to.My students asked if I would continue to teach at their school. I said I had come to enjoy teaching them but felt there were some things that were too dangerous for me not to know more about if I wanted to continue teaching. Two subjects I identified were computers and media. I had been invited to join a doctoral program at Columbia that focused on applying systems thinking and technology to education.In New York City I worked on a research project and supervised student teachers. We were using Bloom’s taxonomy and other techniques to raise the cognitive level of student-teacher dialogues. It was one of many examples of a good idea being applied in a context where it was too easily overwhelmed by more pressing unmet needs.Later I started teaching adults. I worked as a consultant under a very demanding contract that required outside instructors to score higher on student evaluations than any of the internal instructors if we were to keep our jobs. I worked with five different co-teachers with very different teaching styles. We observed each other every day and debriefed how it was going and what we might have done better. I have heard of very few public or charter schools that require this kind of observation by multiple peer teachers. It is not a perfect system, but it made me very aware of my quirks and habits and very focused on my students’ experience and needs.It is very difficult to judge different teaching-learning situations. Teachers don’t have control many conditions that limit their potential and complicate their relationship with students. I feel very lucky to have been exposed to and indeed forced to work with diverse teachers and students. Eventually, I co-taught workshops in seven countries. I am not sure I would have chosen such a challenging a path if I had known what it would require or if I had been completely free to avoid it. But having had these experiences, it now gives me a perspective on teaching and on life that I am very grateful to have.