Mike Friedberg

Mike Friedberg has been a passionate youth advocate since 2007. He began working with students at a community center and has been a Chicago Public Schools teacher since 2012. He currently teaches seventh and eighth-grade science and has previously taught language arts. Mike has interests in working with English-language learners, culturally-relevant pedagogy, project-based learning, Holocaust education and social justice teaching, literacy across content areas, best practices in urban schools, and inquiry-based science, among other areas. He is an advocate for students, parents, schools and teachers, and believes in finding commonalities and engaging in discussion with those on multiple sides of issues in the best interests of students. He lives in Chicago with his wife and two children. His writings can be found at livesleepteach.blogspot.com.

Posts By Mike Friedberg

COVID-19

Are We Going to Let 'Nice White Parents' Kill Black and Brown Families?

A new COVID-19 strain is more contagious than ever. The Trump administration’s sheer neglect in the face of this deadly pandemic is enraging. Federal inaction has cost lives, and we are far from...

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Teaching

Even in Death, Black and Brown Students Are Dehumanized

In my second year of teaching, I had a notorious student we’ll call Israel. After the first day of class, we sat down and discussed appropriate expectations, whom he could work well with and we...

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School Discipline

Why Meek Mill’s Release From Prison Matters More to Your Students Than You Think

The enslavement, segregation and brutality of Black communities has been the bloody heirloom to White America for centuries. And the prison-industrial complex has been a vital component of such...

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Politics

I Refuse to Bury Another Student

Yakez Semark was a bright, warm, charismatic 20-year-old whose life ended several weeks ago due to gun violence. He was also one of my first students. When one of his former classmates notified me...

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Poverty

Money Isn’t the Solution to All of Our Problems But the Funding Inequities That Exist in Urban Schools Is Criminal

Every day I drove to hospice, I stared at the painful reminders of school inequities. In the week that led up to losing my grandmother, I drove through Chicago to a nearby affluent suburb. I was in...

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bias

My Grandmother Who Escaped Nazis Told Me to Always Speak Up. So, I’m Calling Out Racist Teachers.

My grandmother escaped the Nazis three days before they invaded Prague while much of her family did not. En route to America she and her family listened to the radio, in awe as various nations...

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