AAPS: Virtual learning with – Dimitri Przeslawski, Slauson Middle School 

By Jo Mathis/AAPS District News Editor

When Dimitri Przeslawski was an education student at the University of Michigan, he would sometimes imagine what his first day of teaching would look like.

“I remember daydreaming in my different college courses about how I would reteach certain information and what I’d do on my first day to sort of ground everybody,” says Przeslawski, adding that he knew he’d never simply plan a syllabus day for the first day of class.

Przeslawski never considered that Day One would be during a pandemic.

Slauson Middle School’s new social studies teacher—who was hired just two weeks before school started—has quickly gotten used to teaching online, and looks forward to the day he and his students will meet in an actual bricks-and-mortar classroom.

Name: Dimitri Przeslawski

Title: Social studies teacher, Slauson Middle School.

Education: Farmington Hills Harrison High School, University of Michigan School of Education, social studies major, English and psychology minors, Class of 2019.

Current hometown: Ann Arbor.

Why did you want to teach at AAPS? I have been substitute teaching in Ann Arbor for a year, so I am aware that AAPS is an amazing district that cares about its students and teachers. It is a district that I know I was comfortable teaching in.

What has surprised you so far? How I feel content. I thought I would be extremely overwhelmed—first year teaching, online teaching, hired within two weeks of school, etc. But I don’t feel very stressed at all. I feel very supported by Slauson administration, my department, and especially my 6th grade team. I appreciate how Ann Arbor is supplying me with lessons and curriculum for the first few months, which allows me to ease into instruction and lesson planning. A lot of my anxieties for this school year have been settled early on.