I first began working with Cristina* almost four years ago. She had been struggling in math for years. Even when her grades began to improve, she couldn’t help but feel intimidated whenever she worked on a new problem. All those years struggling left her convinced that she could never truly do well in math. This year, Cristina’s doing better than…
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Sometimes the kids are going through something big in their lives, and I am so happy to be there for them through those hard times. But it’s also the small daily challenges that I know will have dramatic, long-term effects. A few weeks ago, I had a student looking at the work she needed to get done over the Thanksgiving…
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As the staff member with the least regular personal contact with students and families, I wasn’t sure whether, from my bird’s eye view, I would really see the impact of my own work. I came to DTS not as an educator, but as an attorney who liked to build and better businesses and organizations, and with a passion for advocating…
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Last summer, Drew*, who was 3,000 miles away at Franklin and Marshall College, texted to tell me he was homesick. I knew this feeling well, as I am a first generation college student who chose to leave my home in Los Angeles to attend a college on the other side of the country. Drew, a rising 12th grader at the…
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This semester I have worked closely with Dave*, helping him navigate personal and academic hurdles. As a rising junior, Dave enrolled in multiple AP classes, but the rigor and the work load were much greater than he anticipated. Instead of the single hour of homework he was used to, he now had several hours of work per class. At first,…
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