The first time one of my English students from a previous year stopped by my room and said “We miss you Ms. Sherrill,” my heart swelled. Then I asked how they were doing in their new eighth-grade English class. I heard, “We’re not learning anything,” and “I hate going to that woman’s room.” I felt awful. Madisyn is an exceptional student who loves learning; she and I worked really hard to raise her English testing scores three levels higher than was projected as possible. I felt despondent as I watched her walk to her class, knowing that a great deal of our accomplishments from last year would be lost.

I’ve taught in exclusively high-poverty, low-scoring, all-black schools in rural Mississippi for my entire career, and I’ve had more students like Madisyn that I can count. It’s time we dispel with the myth that these are unteachable kids. In fact, my kids are so smart that they can tell when they are not getting a quality education.

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Sadie Sherrill is a seventh-grade English language arts teacher at Belle-Shivers Middle School in Aberdeen and a 2018-19 Teach Plus Mississippi Teaching Policy Fellow.