Chanea Bond
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heymrsbond.com
Chanea Bond
@heymrsbond.com
16K followers 3K following 11K posts
(shuh-NAY) • The Madwoman in the Classroom • nationally recognized, award winning literacy educator • teacher-scholar • mom • your favorite teacher’s favorite English teacher • doc student • #heymrsbond 💛 • she/her
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In my district, students in English I & II took a full state standardized test in mid-December. They’ll take another one tomorrow. There was a two week break in between. Nonsensical. #EduSky
One of the biggest threats to public education is the sheer amount of instructional time lost to testing. Show me a school/district's testing calendar, and I'll tell you what they value.
January 14, 2026 at 12:09 AM
heymrsbond.com
Every day, write over a “spotlight” as a bellringer. They study the text, write nonstop for 5 minutes, then share their ideas in small groups. It’s an incredible collegiate-level bellringer activity that ensures every student reads, writes, and speaks every class.

Tomorrow’s spotlight:
Mike Luckovich’s political cartoon. Armed ICE agents are standing over a gunned down Lady Liberty and a word bubble above says “she was brandishing a torch…” To the side, my directions and notes read: Spring Spotlight #2 1) Respond to the text authentically. What do you notice? 2) Consider: a) What is the author's message? b) What does this text say about America?
January 11, 2026 at 9:01 PM
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and using their unchecked power to terrorize marginalized folks across the world. Our students are reading, watching, and listening to the violence unfold and if we don't tell them the truth, they may never hear it and the violent white suprematists will have won.
The Madwoman in the Classroom @heymrsbond "Yes, there is a white supremacist terrorist attack on our nation's capital right now." We have to tell our students the truth. 2:10 PM • 1/6/21
January 6, 2026 at 5:26 PM
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5 years ago, I sat on Zoom school with students who were confused & scared by what they watched unfold. It was important then & it's more important now that we tell the truth. The whole truth: the white supremacist terrorists who attacked the United States Capitol are free, emboldened,
The Madwoman in the Classroom @heymrsbond "Yes, there is a white supremacist terrorist attack on our nation's capital right now." We have to tell our students the truth. 2:10 PM • 1/6/21
January 6, 2026 at 5:26 PM
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Happy new year!

I love sharing this poem by @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social.

I’m reminded this year of Audre Lorde: “These places of possibility within ourselves are dark because they are ancient and hidden; they have survived and grown strong through darkness.”
How Dark the Beginning BY MAGGIE SMITH All we ever talk of is light— let there be light, there was light then, good light—but what I consider dawn is darker than all that. So many hours between the day receding and what we recognize as morning, the sun cresting like a wave that wont break over us—as if light were protective, as if no hearts were flayed, no bodies broken on a day like today. In any film, the sunrise tells us everything will be all right. Danger wouldn't dare show up now, dragging its shadow across the screen. We talk so much of light, please let me speak on behalf of the good dark. Let us talk more of how dark the beginning of a day is.
January 4, 2026 at 12:22 AM
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Merriam-Webster • @merriam-webster.... Follow Take a screenshot of this GIF, and whichever new word you land on is YOUR word for 2026. Let's. Go. Merriam-Webster Your 2026 Word besotted
January 2, 2026 at 3:10 PM
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I love @jess5th.bsky.social’s tradition of starting and ending the year with a poem. Ashley M. Jones’s “Lullaby for the Grieving” is perfect.

maybe there are angels here, too—
LULLABY FOR THE GRIEVING at the Sipsey River make small steps. in this wild place there are signs of life everywhere. sharp spaces, too: the slip of a rain-glazed rock against my searching feet. small steps, like prayers-each one a hope exhaled into the trees. please, let me enter. please, let me leave whole. there are, too, the tiny sounds of faraway birds. the safety in their promise of song. the puddle forming, finally, after summer rain. the golden butterfly against the cave-dark. maybe there are angels here, too what else can i call the crown of light atop the leaves? what else can i call my footsteps forward, small, small, sure? By Ashley M. Jones Ashley M. Jones Ashley M. Jones is the Poet Laureate of Alabama. She is the author of three award-winning poetry collections, including most recently Reparations Now! She is the co-editor of What Things Cost: An Anthology for the People. Her work has been featured by CNN, BBC, Good Morning America, ABC News, and the New York Times. She is the associate director of the University Honors Program at The University of Alabama at Birmingham, and she teaches in the low-residency MFA Program at Converse University.
January 1, 2026 at 2:49 AM
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My final reflections on this god-forsaken year and my prayers for the new one.

So, in 2026, I pray for tenderness. For more softness and grace. For more light, and laughter, and love. For more comfort. For peace.
2025 was the hardest year of my adult life. If Zora Neale Hurston is right, 2025 was a year that asked a lot of us. Demanded, really. Professionally, while I was an incredible teacher, I was not the leader I want to be. I was reactive and undisciplined, and that showed up in ways big and small. My team, my people, did so much to buoy me and our students, and for that I am grateful. Leading is complex, and my voice is consequential. My first semester in my doctoral program was difficult, but the hardness made me a better, more empathetic, more thoughtful educator. It was easy to see my own struggles in my students as we made a way together. This experience reminded me that vulnerability is my superpower and I'm my best when I learn out loud. Personally, my marriage is at an impasse. My husband and I love each other, but we're unsure if the lives we envision for ourselves are possible with the other. I've said and done a lot | regret, but at the end of 2025, I'm more proud than not of who I am as I stand in the middle of a road not knowing which way to turn just yet. I can tell I'm older and wiser; I can tell I'm growing. My children are beautiful and motherhood is bittersweet. They're brilliant and funny and 2025 illuminated that they deserve a mom who models a love of life. I lost a best friendship in 2025 and the grief that comes from knowing we'll never be the same shows up in unexpected ways. I also gained a best friendship and it's been soul-healing to know that someone in my world sees me, loves me, and wants me to know love. My best best friend, my little sister, has once again been my rock and my harbor. I know God loves me because he gave me my sister. My team, my chosen family, serves as a reminder that community is love and the people we are must be nurtured to withstand the work we do.
December 31, 2025 at 12:25 AM
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10 of the most beautiful, devastating, thought-provoking quotes from fiction. There is no rhyme or reason to the order, and there are at least four more parts.

Rules for myself: one sentence that can stand alone to say something that changes the brain. What're your best sentences in fiction? 3/3
“I often wonder if I died in the best possible way - in the arms of the one who loved me the most, wearing a skin that was true.” from The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi “There's just this for consolation: an hour here or there when our lives seem, against all odds and expectations, to burst open and give us everything we've ever imagined, though everyone but children (and perhaps even they) know these hours will inevitably be followed by others, far darker and more difficult.” from The Hours by Michael Cunningham
December 29, 2025 at 5:09 PM
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10 of the most beautiful, devastating, thought-provoking quotes from fiction. There is no rhyme or reason to the order, and there are at least four more parts.

Rules for myself: one sentence that can stand alone to say something that changes the brain. What're your best sentences in fiction? 2/3
“Nevertheless, for Kambirinachi, living was a tumultuous cascade between the unbearable misery of being in this alive body indefinitely and an utter intoxication with the substance, the very matter, of life.” from Butter Honey Pig Bread by Francesca Ekwuyasi “It is just a consequence of living, a consequence of occupation and immigration, of empires and expansion, of living in each other's pockets... one becomes involved and it is a long trek back to becoming uninvolved.” from White Teeth by Zadie Smith “The only person I really wanted to talk to about Augustus Waters’s Death was Augustus Waters.” from The Fault in Our Stars by John Green “So she went on thinking back to her young years and explaining them to her friend in soft, easy phrases while all around the house, the night time put on flesh and blackness.” from Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
December 29, 2025 at 5:09 PM
heymrsbond.com
10 of the most beautiful, devastating, thought-provoking quotes from fiction. There is no rhyme or reason to the order, and there are at least four more parts.

Rules for myself: one sentence that can stand alone to say something that changes the brain. What're your best sentences in fiction? 1/3
“Remember that just because something is, doesn’t mean it can’t change, and just because you haven’t seen something before, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible.” from Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah “There are some words that once spoken will split the world in two.” from Small Island by Andrea Levy “You your best thing, Sethe.” from Beloved by Toni Morrison “Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband's death.” from “Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin
December 29, 2025 at 5:09 PM
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Went into a @barnesandnoble.com SUPER early and tested out some pens!! Wrote myself a little message and thought I’d shared it with you. 💛
Hello! Hi! I love you! So glad you’re still here! Buy the pens! They’ll bring you joy!
December 26, 2025 at 2:36 PM
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A letter to myself and to all the moms! I celebrate us and I thank GAWD for gift bags 😭🤣
December 24, 2025 at 5:30 PM
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Chanea’s Top Two novels of 2025

1) Chain-gang All-Stars altered my brain chemistry
2) My Friends broke and mended my heart
Book cover of Chaingang allstars that reads NANA KWAME ADJEI-BRENYAH KIMES BEST-SELLING AUTHOR OF FRIDAY BLACK A NOVEL CHAIN HANG ALL-STARS Book cover of My Friends that reads #1 New York TIMES BEStswller FREDRIK BACKMAN A novel MY FRIENDS
December 23, 2025 at 4:52 PM
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This is gonna piss some people off, but it’s really shitty to put students out there like this. It’s a tacky trend and we should let it go expeditiously. www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8yrNHnf/
December 20, 2025 at 12:23 AM
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Ya girl went to work (MASKED) with a low-grade fever because it’s finals week but — I have some thoughts about students who are desperate enough to do the wrong thing for what they believe is the right reason. Educators (K-all) what do you think? www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8yNxRH1/
December 17, 2025 at 12:46 AM
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I had a cool day hanging out with @leevgaines.bsky.social , a freelance reporter for @npr.org! She shadowed me and spoke to many of my students about AI. The full story will come out in January, but please go watch Lee’s TikTok here! www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8yJ1WUu/
December 13, 2025 at 8:03 PM
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My child’s school does a lot of things right, but this thing is pervasive and not great. I’m sharing in hopes that these words may reach a parent, teacher, principal, district administrator, or someone who can help shift the culture toward something more equitable.
Principal, As an educator at a public school in Texas, I understand and commend your commitment to attendance. Students showing up is important for school funding, and chronic absenteeism makes teaching, learning, and the business of school significantly harder. I promise I understand. With that established, I'd like you to walk through my morning as a mom of a child who believes that perfect attendance is aspirational. My child had a low-grade fever when she went to sleep and woke up with one. She sobbed uncontrollably about missing school and missing the opportunity for perfect attendance. She's been led to believe, based on celebrations and incentives from the school, that perfect attendance is more important than her health. Against my better judgment, I sent my child to school medicated and masked, because she could not fathom missing school, even for her own health, and I am stressed, exhausted, and not feeling my best at the end of the semester. The only solace is that my daughter masks most of the time and she masked today to protect her classmates. Incentivizing attendance, especially after COVID, is inequitable and has the potential to make vulnerable families worse. Students who are sick should never be made to feel like they're failing themselves, their classmates, or their school community; they should actually be commended; they're taking precautions to keep their teachers and classmates as safe as possible and that's an example of loving community. One suggestion I offer: instead of perfect attendance being the goal, students should be commended for showing up 90%+ of the time and students who have chronic illness over the course of a semester could be given case-by-case consideration for any incentives relating to attendance. I won't pretend to understand the complex system that is running a school, especially a school of small children, and I appreciate the work you do. My daughter has grown tremendously at your school. I just ask that you and your …
December 12, 2025 at 12:40 AM
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Raise your hand if you submitted all the assignments for the first semester of your doctoral program
Chanea raising her hand
December 6, 2025 at 4:43 PM
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From that day forward, I’ve shifted my winter activities to be truly inclusive of all students.

The student was in my class again his senior year. At the end of our last class together, he gave me a big hug and said,

“Thank you for listening to me.”
Tom Rademacher @MrTomRad I don't know who needs to hear this, but you know that fun Christmas activity you're planning for your classroom? Stop. Unless you work at a Christian school, your room doesn't need any stockings or Santas or reindeer. @HEYMRSBOND
December 3, 2025 at 11:00 PM
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One student admitted that holidays were triggering because of trauma and I was slapped in the face that it never dawned on me, teacher who claims to be inclusive, that, because Christmas isn’t for everyone, it’s not for my classroom. I was disappointed in myself.+
Tom Rademacher @MrTomRad I don't know who needs to hear this, but you know that fun Christmas activity you're planning for your classroom? Stop. Unless you work at a Christian school, your room doesn't need any stockings or Santas or reindeer. @HEYMRSBOND
December 3, 2025 at 11:00 PM
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Annual story time! #EduSky

6 years ago, my friend Tom tweeted this. Because I’m a holiday LOVER who had a classroom tree and array of holiday assignments,

I paused and decided to poll my students to gauge their feelings.

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Tom Rademacher @MrTomRad I don't know who needs to hear this, but you know that fun Christmas activity you're planning for your classroom? Stop. Unless you work at a Christian school, your room doesn't need any stockings or Santas or reindeer. @HEYMRSBOND
December 3, 2025 at 11:00 PM
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I love this poem.
What You Missed That Day You Were Absent from Fourth Grade Mrs. Nelson explained how to stand still and listen to the wind, how to find meaning in pumping gas, how peeling potatoes can be a form of prayer. She took questions on how not to feel lost in the dark After lunch she distributed worksheets that covered ways to remember your grandfather's voice. Then the class discussed falling asleep without feeling you had forgotten to do something else- something important- and how to believe the house you wake in is your home. This prompted Mrs. Nelson to draw a chalkboard diagram detailing how to chant the Psalms during cigarette breaks, and honot tars also, that sound when your own thoughts The English lesson was that I am is a complete sentence. And just before the afternoon bell, she made the math equation look easy. The one that proves that hundreds of questions, and feeling cold, and all those nights spent looking for whatever it was you lost, and one person add up to something. - Brad Aaron Modlin
December 3, 2025 at 9:57 AM
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This poem by @briangyamfi.bsky.social breaks me and reminds me of one of our #PoemADayJuly poems!

@marcusluther.bsky.social
@thevogelman.bsky.social
Poets.org The 'Thing Dead on the Road Brian Gyamfi I'm afraid I was wrong about the world ending. The man sitting on the bench-is simply a man on fire. His fingers; reaching for solitude, something brief. The day becomes a sigh of pigeons digging For stones. I stand near the station Too sick to notice the bench—or the man—or fire Or whether I've been spared from grief. Even the roadkill, coveting concrete, stands And walks. Where are those left behind? I thought I knew something About Armageddon. I apologize, But when the world pauses, I will sing naked In the heat and grow a forest of sycamores. Who can survive an apocalypse And live? I made the roadkill a god But I'm not allowed to speak for god So I wait.
December 3, 2025 at 12:50 AM
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I have severely limited my shopping on Amazon, but coming across this dress as it got cold has saved my sanity and I couldn’t recommend it more highly 😭

(It has pockets and it is warm)

a.co/d/5tMzrbn
Chanea standing next to a window in a hoodie dress Chanea standing next to a window in a hoodie dress
December 2, 2025 at 2:38 PM