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Ellie Herman is a writer and English teacher, who taught Drama, Advanced Drama, Creative Writing, English 11 and 9th grade composition at Animo Pat Brown Charter High School in south Los Angeles. A career union member, she is now immersed in a year-long journey, spending time in teachers’ classrooms at schools across the socioeconomic spectrum in L.A. to learn how to become a better teacher.

“The only way I’m going to get better at teaching is to watch real teachers in action–not to mock bad teachers, but to closely observe good ones and learn from them,” she says at Gatsby in LA, her blog, where she is chronicling her experiences.

Ellie joins us at LA School Report as a guest commentator, with periodic observations of public education in Los Angeles. Her first appears today.