For our January All Fellows Forum we played a complicated game of like that had us play as characters of all different gender, race, age, economic status, and other walks of life to represent all the different people you will have in your classroom or even interact with during life. Unlike the typical game of Life that we all played as children, many characters in this game had an advantage over others simply because of their randomly drawn characters. We can compare this to our lives because each of us were given traits that we cannot control such as gender and race and it is up to us to use every opportunity we are given to grow and succeed. I really enjoyed this forum, it showed me as a future educator that no student is to be given up on because each of us has the opportunity to succeed in life no matter what hand they may have been delt. 

During our February 2nd Year Forum we watched a documentary filmed in 2017 about the Red for Ed movement. As someone who went through my K-12 experience in North Carolina, this documentary was very interesting to watch because I got to learn about this movement that I remember happening when I was younger but knew nothing about. This was very empowering to see how teachers and people all over the state worked together to advocate for teachers and education. 

On February 23rd we spent the morning at Ed. V Baldwin Elementary in Fayetteville participating in their career day. We brought Bee-bots from METRC and other materials to introduce students to coding and to encourage students that teaching is a possible career path for them. This was so much fun and really solitified my love for the education field. The students were so bright and fun to work with, they loved the robots and it was so great to see their creativity flow and their minds work to code the Bee-Bots. I will defintley incorporate coding into my classroom whenever possible. 

This years TED Talks for Educators was amazing. Hearing the speeches of profound people in this profession was enlightening, empowering and brought me so much excitment to enter this profession. I loved how we heard from a variety of people within the profession. From principles to 1st year teachers, we got to listen to so many unique perspectives and inspiring stories. TED Talks for Educators has so far been my favorite Teaching Fellow Event and I am so excited to attend again next year. 

During our last All Fellows Forum of the school year we were surprised with Surface Pros given to us by North Carolina Teaching Fellows. Pictured is our reaction to opening these as a program, and as you can see we were thrilled and so thankful. After opening and celebrating this amazing gift, we wrote thank you notes to all who made providing these Surface Pros possible. I am so thankful to be apart of a program with funding to provide us with reliable tools to use in our classrooms and I cannot wait to put my Surface Pro to work in my upcoming years as an educator.