Week 1 of Institute down! I don't think I've ever been so exhausted in my entire life, but it's beyond worth it. Rather than catching up on the dozens of hours we are all behind on sleep, we of course bolted to downtown Chicago to enjoy an amazing view of the city from Rockbottom rooftop bar. Getting half our corps on the El was quite an experience in and of its own. One guy asked us what we were doing and we said we were all going to be teachers soon. Dave, the corps member talking to the guy, told us about the guy's response. He seemed a little worried - "So, you all are going to be teachers. You could be teaching my 7-year-old." He seemed less than confident.
Today we explored the city, checking out Millennium Park and Navy Pier and the bean. We walked all around and watched U.S. sadly lose to Ghana in a bar in Lincoln Park. Next up? Sushi! Then dancing downtown.
We took a quite trip to Target and the funniest thing - everything we bought was for our kids. We bought posters, dry erase boards, and more just because. It's hitting us that our kids our depending on us to get them to the next grade in 15, yes 15, teaching days. Can we handle this?
Teachers are supposed to keep a calm, collective voice to maintain composure and show control in the classroom. Your voice should show assertiveness without being mean, it should be firm, confident, and caring. Today we practiced our teaching voices, and I got to volunteer to do mine in front of 50 or so teachers to be to get feedback on my tone and enthusiasm. Apparently I have a calm, cheerful, assertive tone.
Those teachers must not have seen or heard me yesterday. Yesterday was a day that I was on the brink of tears, overwhelmed by the chaotic swarm of information -- FYI anything named Super Tuesday isn't super -- and deadlines that make my college freakouts look like the little leagues. I was in the middle of learning what a lesson vision was (think of it as the brainstorming web you did in elementary school before doing your rough draft) and I was supposed to have 8 lesson plans due within the next 48 hours? Lesson plans that would be taught by me to about 30 judging pairs of 8-year-old eyes Monday morning? I'd like to say I kept calm and collected, by the manic laughing sessions to balance out fits of rage and knot-at-the-back-of-your-throat anxiety stood in the way of that long lost objective.
And yes, any vocabulary out of me will be teaching aligned (there's another one!) for the next 5 weeks, because I think if I think about anything outside of GAP and backwards planning and key notes and objectives and SWBAT and CMWBAT and every acronym in the book, I will explode.
And then, Wednesday came. Wednesday came and frustrated and then calmed my fears and anxieties. Why? Because tomorrow I'm meeting my kids. Today I set up rules and procedures, tomorrow I make the real fun plans like reward systems. Today I planned how I'm going to shh my students and make them raise their hands and line up with full faces and bunny tails (yes, it's a strategy to hush the little ones). Tonight I finished lesson visions and lesson plans, and proved I can weather the storm -- not just the stress and work, but the actual crazy storm that set off Chicago tornado warnings and sirens and kept TFA Chicago Institute in lockdown in the dining hall and then a leaking basement under our dorm building. It has been quite a 24 hours.
But again, I'm ready for tomorrow. Tomorrow I get to meet my kids and my FA (Faculty Adviser, also known as the real teacher), and I get to administer SDQ and DRA stuff. I get to have kids read to me and assess their levels so that I can set their goals for the summer. I cannot wait. This brings me back to the MOMENT I wanted to be a teacher. To the moment I realized I was finally a reader. I still remember everything about the day I tested with my first grade teacher and she was shocked by my progress, moving me from the lowest in the class to the advanced class with the 2nd and 3rd grade students. I had never felt so empowered, and so motivated to keep reading (which I already loved despite the fact I couldn't read before I was 6).
I cannot WAIT to bring these students up to their level, and maybe even some beyond. Today lesson planning started out as confusing and a mess that I wanted to toss out into the 'tornado', and then I got into it. By the end, I was excited. I was excited about the game I had planned that was both comprehensive and quick, engaging and instructional, individual and group assessing. I was excited about the award plan I created that I will keep with me in my math classes and the yellow stars I can just envision lining the classroom. I cannot wait.
It's funny how quickly our routines and goals and priorities change. I like it and I don't. People already talk about college like they did high school four years ago, and instead of aiming to stay out until 5am, I'm up and showered by then for school to turn in lesson plans and check my box in the teacher's office. It makes me proud and excited, but leaves me a little missing. I miss the people at home enjoying their summers and making more memories together. I miss the people who have made me who I am, the person who came here.
But I'm finally feeling like this is my life and not a summer camp (despite the closer quarters, crazy hours, and hot buses). It hit me that I did something this summer -- I completed a journey I've had planned for myself since I was in the first grade and wrote where I wanted to be when I was 20 years old. OK I'm a little late, by I didn't get college when I was 6! I wanted to be a teacher. I wanted to be a teacher more than anything, and it hit me today that I am. It's the first thing in my life that I dreamed of doing and succeeded. I've had things I wanted to short-term dreamed of, but I mean a real long-standing dream. I wanted to have a class, and I will. I've never felt more grown up. And I can't wait to ask my kids
St. Louis Corps Members infiltrated campus yesterday for the Chicago TFA training institute, and infiltrated is definitely the word. While we join over 400 other corps members from Detroit, Kansas City, Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana and more, we definitely make our voices (and cheers!) heard.
After settling in our cozy dorms rooms .... yeah ... we woke up at all hours of the morning to prepare for our 6:55 bus report times (or at least that's when the first set of buses headed out to South Chicago). I found out yesterday that for my institute training, I will be teaching summer school to third graders at Spencer, a math and science charter school. I have to say, I'm beyond excited (and yes, terrified could be used there as well). Third grade is one of those special grades where the students MUST pass a statewide exam to go on to the next grade. In our case, that test is the ISAC, which translates to I'M RESPONSIBLE FOR CHILDREN PASSING THEIR GRADE! WHAT?!?
While induction made us excited and proud to be teachers, institute makes us teachers. Today, we are, and it finally set in as reality with the vision and mission talk out of the way. It was a long day, yes, but I feel like I came away with a lot. We talked about the GAP, setting goals, making lesson plans, expectations, and I DO WE DO YOU DO. I almost teared up at a couple of the stories shared (OK, I DID tear up at a few of the stories, but you would to!). And tonight, for the first time, goose bumps.
Yes, really. Tonight, after moving nonstop from 5 am to 5 pm, we had a ceremony at 7 pm (which we had to be there more than 30 minutes early to intimidate one another's cores with our own cheers). We heard more testimonies, including one from a St. Louis Corps Alumn, but the best part was listening to Wendy Kopp and Tim Daly. These two, two of the biggest names of TFA, gave me goosebumps and an even greater sense of purpose.
Wendy Kopp is CEO and founder of Teach for America, which started as a simple college thesis and transformed into what it is today. Timothy Daly is president of The New Tear Project and a TFA alumn from Baltimore (you may have heard about a little thing called The Widget Effect and The Race to the Top, which his ideas inspired). These two hooked us in even after a 14-hour day to feel inspired and empowered. I felt so honored to have them telling us what an honor it was to be with the 2010 core. This is what it's all about, that and the hundreds and thousands of students we are helping.
Now it's time to get busy, with lessons plans and collab groups and lectures and training in between. I found out I pulled the short straw as I will be teaching math the first and last week, which means the only one in my group to teach math twice; furthermore, because our group is one person short, the two math lessons go to one person, which means for two weeks I will be teaching 3 lessons a day and 2 lessons the other weeks. While my friend and I were quite intimidated and honestly scared to death by the news, we are going to embrace it as an opportunity for more practice and juggling.
As terrified as I am, I am ready to go. This is what I needed to do.
If there was ever a doubt in my mind to choose Teach for America, induction swept it far away. I have been constantly inspired by the narratives we have seen and the passionate drive in all of the teachers surrounding me. I cannot begin to imagine how incredibly trying the next two year are going to be, but rewarding doesn't begin to describe what those challenges will be. While we tried to talk about more than the achievement gap during our fleeting minutes of free time during meals, it's hard to talk about anything else when you hear a 10-year-old say the want to be a doctor when they grow up and you know the chances of her even graduating high school are less than 50 percent. We have been slapped in the face with some grim realities and a fairly stark picture of the difficulty of what we are doing, but in the end those conversations are the one that stir my excitement for this even more. I know what education did for me, and I know I started behind. If it wasn't for a supportive family that encouraged me and some wonderful teachers, who knows where I would be today.
The few moments this week that we tried to take a break from TFA, we did enjoy this great city. We've visited most of the major neighborhoods, with Soulard, Central West End, and my new home Tower Grove being my favorites. I walked for hours around Clayton and Forest Park just admiring the environment. Last night, new roomie Nikki and I enjoyed our first of two nights staying downtown with an outdoor movie at the Old Post Office Plaza -- yes, it was such a date night.
Tomorrow we head out for institute, what I know is going to be the bootcamp for Teach for America. It's going to be exhausting (1 million times more so than this last one, which I'm still trying to recover from) and we are going to be shocked with how little we know and how quickly we have to be ready to take on a classroom. We are going to be critiqued every step of the way, be thrown into roles we've never had before in front of students in last-ditch summer school efforts just to pass. And the worst part is, these students are much more than a few months behind. Full days, no break from it, trying work -- but amazing people and experiences in a city I'm dying to explore.
Did I mention my new landlord is a professional boxer?
Please do, because from the tiny part I've seen, I love this place.
It's beautiful, it's packed full of culture, neighborhoods who are as committed to their identities as the Gamecocks are to USC, and best of all, tons of fun things to do ... FO FREE.
I'm falling in love with what I'm seeing, and I have yet to meet a person I don't like. We had session again today as I prepare for my first interview, but best of all I went meandering alone in the city and then we had Lou Crew time and went out in Soulard! I LOVE the Blue Lou Crew -- Jillian, Whitney, Ashley, David, and honorary Rebecca -- and we had the best time with other 10s and 09s.
The most serious conversation of the night? What should our group be called :) The O-10s, the 10s, ots, dimes, dime tens ... i dunno. Either way, we are determined to make institute an amazing experience. How do we beat a shower keg, cart full of beer on the roof, and party bus to a Braves game? Here's where the real challenge comes ....
The first thing I think about when I hear the phrase "storm-chasers", I think about insane people whose sense of reality, danger, and caution is inversely relation to their survival probability. So I found the term appropriate for my adventure -- and not just because within the first twelve hours of living in St. Louis I managed to get caught in the rain hauling 60-plus pounds of luggage uphill, lock myself out of my dorm, get lost and caught in a torrential downpour, and wake up with the normal bruises.
So yes, it would seem I have a knack for disaster, even in the Midwest. One comfort I can bring with me to Missouri.
And now for the serious stuff that comes with the idea of what I'm doing as chasing storms, because the first day of induction was a true inspiration and reminded me of the greater purpose at hand. TFA-ers are like storm chasers. We leave behind our cozy homes and "set" futures and drop all prospects for financial and geographical comforts to tackle an excruciatingly challenging work that takes over our lives, brings us to tears, and offers little back to the bank. Even leaving some of us feeling like we are in debtors prison with tuitions to two university's as we train for certification -- yay BVU and UMSL!
Vision. Leadership. Community. These are the core values we are learning to live by. As one of my fellow corps members OJ so insightfully said in our small group yesterday, "we are the bricks laying the foundation to fill the education gap."
Looking in from the outside, it sounds maybe overly optimistic or fleeting to want to drop everything to immerse yourself in what seems to be a destined failure, and maybe I'm just a motivational speaker's dream (as I knew before and am assured now), but this program lights a fire in me.
Today a young man from Slumner High School, where less than half of seniors graduate, who is now a sophomore in college, spoke to us about his struggles and experience in overcoming them -- and I was hooked. Later I heard a little girl talk about how she wanted to do good in school so she could be smart in the third grade and be a teacher or doctor because she wants to help people. Then we were reminded that statistics show her chances of even graduating or attending college are beyond small.
From the time we wake up to the time we go to sleep, this is the reminder and the message is clear -- we have to fix this. We can't do it all or expect to make radical changes, but we can make progress. I felt selfish when I was thinking about what I'm doing here. Being so caught up in my choices and placement and moving away from the friends and family I love, I forget that my little miniscule frets do not compare to the dramatic struggles my kids face. And they don't match up to the value of impacting even one child's life while I'm here. It might be hard, but a little distance and change are worth the opportunity to prove to one student that education can save your life, like it did mine.
Guess I just want to create more dorks and book nerds in this country :)
After a whirlwind of what seems to be accidentally stumbling into a completely foreign existence for me for two years (typical, I would stumble into anything including my future), I am actually here. St. Louis. Gateway to the West. Crossroads of the nation's two dividing rivers and virtual center spot of the country.
And there are more emotions and thoughts running through my heart and brain than there are miles between everything I know and love and everything I know I will.
So what makes a girl leave behind the people and places that complete her heart and define the woman she's become and head off into unmarked territory to teach disadvantaged youth in one of the nation's most struggling school systems?
The funny thing is, the challenge is my favorite part of this whole affair. I'm not one for change, well, at least not change that dislodges me from what I know and love. But the change that I embrace, the change that distracts me from the homesickness and peoplesickness (hey, it can be a word), is the invigorating potential for change that I can instill on the lives of these youths.
It sounds cheesy and over the top, I'm sure, but as difficult and challenging as this experience and transition is and will continue to be, I am proud of myself for choosing to give back what I've been given and to devote myself to people who need this help.
I am starting this blog for myself to see how I grow and learn and adapt, because I know how quickly two years will fly, but I also know how much I am going to get from those two short years. I have no idea what's ahead, but I want the people who care about me to understand why I made the choice I made, and why it matters for me to be here. I can't put into words how scary it is to be in a new place on my own away from you, who I miss incredibly. But your support for me means the world, and I know two years a few miles apart will only strengthen what I have with the people who are engrained in my life.
And now it's 1am and this insomniac has learned that waking up at 6 for a 12/16-hour day means I gotta go to sleep. But now I promise I have some fun and I'm sure silly stories to share with you next, including my first day in St. Louis and then my first day of induction.
|
RSS Feed