Introduction
My name is My-Nuong Widenham, but I go by Miriam and my students call me Ms. Widenham, Ms. W, Teacher or the expletive of the day. I currently teach at Fresno Unified's expulsion site for middle and high school students. This is my second year in the classroom and my final months in the credentialing program at National. I came to teaching as a second career. I graduated from Fresno State in 2002 not knowing what I wanted to do. I was completely unprepared to know what to do next. I had a degree in Literature, but what was I supposed to do with that if I wasn't going into teaching? All my friends were going the teaching route and I didn't want to be a part of the status quo. I took a job as a bartender for a year to decide what I wanted to do. That turned into two years and then life happened: I became a mom, and then a single mom. 13 years later my job went into flux because the restaurant that I worked for was going to be sold. I began subbing and I