Learn with Mel Hern

Newcomer students—recent arrivals to the United States—often face a whirlwind of challenges as they adjust to a new country, culture, and school system. For educators, the responsibility of supporting these amazing students extends beyond academics. It requires empathy, cultural responsiveness, and a commitment to creating equitable learning opportunities. This blog explores the journey newcomers face, practical strategies for supporting them, and how we can embrace bilingual instruction to help students thrive academically and socially. Please know that this post is not an exhaustive list of the struggles Newcomers face and the strategies that educational institutions must take. Instead, this is a very basic springboard to ongoing work that should most definitely continue as educators receive more diverse students from around the world in their classrooms. Understanding the Newcomer Experience Newcomers arrive with a variety of backgrounds, languages, and educational experiences. Some...

Should I Quit My Day Job Yet?  Let me give you a little back story on my dream to work from home. I have been on a mission to create a side gig that will eventually allow me to leave my full-time job as an educator. I have been teaching for the last 19 years and while I love working with students, I do feel that I need a change.  I want to be able to work from home and move away from the daily grind so that I can be with my parents whenever they need me, still be able to help support my family, and have the freedom that I crave. That is my why and I am working tirelessly for change so that I can accomplish my dream.  My first attempt at working from home started about two years ago as I began selling It Works products, that I really do love. I have made an income from my phone each month, which has been great. I love to introduce people to our awesome coffee, neck cream, and more and I will continue to spread the word, but I know that it isn't my calling to do this for t...

Growing up Mexican-American in the United States was growing up to be White. I was raised In South Texas, in a predominantly brown town, but let’s be real…the town was run by the minority White folks. So, to say that I fully embraced my culture, my history, would be a lie. I was more White than I should have been. From the time I was born, the society in which my ancestors fought in wars for tried to rid me of my heritage. Forget that my Great-grandfather, grandfather, and father were veterans and saw bloodshed for this country and forget that my ancestors where here long before Texas became Texas. None of that matters when you are growing up brown in America. Why is that? Why are our White brothers and sisters so scared of allowing us an equal playing field? Stop right there if you think we have always had equality because if you do, you are sadly mistaken. Let me give you a brief history of my family’s field and you decide if I have had an equal chance at life. Were opportunities the...

  Let's talk about making money online. If you are anything like me, you are seeking to make passive income so that you can have the freedom to live life on your own terms, and even though some make earning passive income look easy, everything you have tried has failed. Either way, you keep dreaming of the day when you achieve the financial freedom of being able to work from anywhere in the world while money rolls in while you sleep.  Wouldn't that be cool?  Well, If you have been following me at all, then you know I have been focused on working hard to make money online since around the end of April. So, how has it gone? Before I delve into the income portion, let's discuss the type of platforms that I am using. The first platform I started using was the boom learning site which saved me during our online teaching sessions. I truly love  boomcards . They are interactive activities on any topic and grade level you can imagine. What I do on boom learning is create dig...

To bring back to life from apparent death or unconsciousness is to resuscitate. It is hard work, sometimes gut wrenching work. The act of resuscitating a human who has lost consciousness may be what seems to you as an eternity; arms shaking, deliberate movements to find life, and a hope-filled energy that moves you to not quit until you have heard a breath or found a pulse.  The unconscious body being resuscitated is symbolic of our education system as it hangs on for dear life, not quite lifeless yet but nearing the threshold. Years and years of oppression, segregation, manipulation, drawing of lines to separate Black from White, rich from poor is taking its toll. From political destruction of our system to outright mandated teaching methods that simply do not work, our students are finding it hard to stay conscious folks, that is unless they are wealthy and live in the right school districts. Our system that is supposed to educate its youth is tattered, hanging on for dear ...

  Are you a teacher wanting to make money by selling your products online? Do you have great ideas and/or lessons you have created that you want to share? Well, let me tell you that you absolutely can make money by selling your resources online. Did I say it was easy? Did I say you would make a lot of money in a short time? No. In fact, as I am in the midst of month two of selling my personally created interactive lessons, I can show you exactly how much online money I have earned. Below you will find my first-month earnings from Boom Learning and my current earning which is current as of today, 06/10/21. I still have 20 days to earn some dinero! 🙌  As you can see, I earned $51.67 in my first month and I am currently at $35.49 for month two. Not bad for a beginner. Are you wondering about Teachers Pay Teachers ? Yeah... I made $7.55 my first month and so far this month, I am at $0! 😒  I have some work to do on TPT! I have had sales on different items that I have c...

Hey teachers! Does this look like any of you at any point this year? Looking half exhausted and half zombielike?  😳  No, I did not turn to alcohol every day, if you are wondering by the bottle sitting next to me. I'm more of a coffee girl, even when I want to relax. Is that completely off the wall? I drink coffee to relax?  What can I say? I'm an odd duck.  Anyhow, let me refocus on my topic of being a truly tired teacher this year. In  all the years that I have been teaching, this is the first year that I have literally come home and looked pretty similar to a walking zombie. No joking my peeps.  I think my husband can testify to my craziness. Hey, at least he is still alive. He survived my zombie year and lives to tell the tale of the truly tired, often zombie like, teacher wife. LOL! On a serious note, I took naps this year! Never have I been a napper and let me tell you, I had many naps. I even napped so hard one day and woke up at 7:40 pm thinking I w...

  If you have been a little stressed about your students, don't fret. I think I might have the answer for you. I say hop on board the boomlearning express! This tool is amazing and will not only benefit the students but will help you, as a teacher too with automatic grading and a library full of interactive pre-made lessons from PreK-12th grade! Are you an educator who has dealt with the struggles of virtual learning?  If so, you might be thinking that these past several months have not been the best for learning. In fact, you might have seen the drop already as students were forced to take assessments this school year. You might also be wondering how your students can continue growing their brains, and recoup all that they have missed, over the upcoming summer months. After all, many of us in the educational world know this time as the "summer slide" where students regress during their lengthy time off of school.  Although the validity of such regression is definitely qu...

  You're talented, they said. You are awesome and you are a leader, they said. You are a hard worker and need to create your own material, they said. It will be easy and you can make so much money, they said! Does this sound familiar? Well, let me tell you, I went all in on this well intentioned and motivating advice. Two months later, I have made $28.17 on my Boom Learning   journey and a whopping $6.75 on my Teacher Pay Teachers store .  The well intentioned motivators above, who constantly cheer me on, mainly my family, certainly had no clue the hard work I was going to face. And, quite frankly, neither did I. I thought, "OMG! if other teachers love boom cards as much as I do, there must be a place for me." Well, let me tell you, there definitely is a place, but some of what I am learning is that: You have to really work hard on honing in on one area of your work and get great at it because there is stiff competition. As you grow your following, you can move on to ...