01/17/2026
2016 was a big year for Ms. Green! In 2016 I was 23 (!!), and it was the end of my first year of teaching and the beginning of my second— two classrooms of fifth graders that I still think about constantly.
In 2016 we dove deep into the election, and came to film our classroom, Bernie Sanders won my class primary after a strong student-led campaign, Hillary Clinton won the nation-wide student primary, and our work was written up in several news outlets.
I presented at my first social studies conference, my kids did amazing work challenging dominant narratives (a lesson I later wrote about for my first article!), and I made all of my fifth graders get on a bus across town so I could fan girl over and hear him talk about our favorite book.
2016 was a year of big ups and downs. It informed so much of my work as a teacher and solidified my beliefs in the power of young people to advocate for justice in an increasingly unjust world.