There are 27 varieties of hummus at the local grocery store in my neighborhood in Cincinnati. Strictly speaking, it's not the local grocery store; it's one of three all on the same block. Staring at the 27 varieties of hummus tonight, the same string of thoughts and questions snake into my mind as have several times this week: Why does anyone need this many kinds of hummus? Why does anyone need this many varieties of anything? Do these people know what luxury this is? Do they know that people in their own country go without all of this? Without 27 varieties of hummus, without three groceries stores in town, without all the jobs the stores provide, without the fresh produce they sell? Six months ago, did I know?
I've been visiting home this week for Thanksgiving and it's the first time I've returned since leaving Ohio in late May. In my time in the Delta, I've been to Memphis and Jackson for a day here and there, but I haven't spent any extended time out of the Delta since leaving home. This week has been my first long exposure to the way things are outside of my bubble, and it's been a complicated week.
When volunteers and missionaries return from developing countries, they often report feelings of isolation and a sense of being overwhelmed by this place they used to call home. My experience is obviously very different from someone who has spent an extended time in a completely foreign country and culture, but that confusing lack of belonging in the most familiar setting has become one I understand. It's hard not to be overwhelmed and a little put off by the fact that there are more businesses in the Philadelphia Airport than there are in the town I teach in. Driving down a main road in a wealthier suburb north of Cincinnati, the inequity becomes staggering as I wonder aloud to my mother why anyone could need so many restaurants on one street. It doesn't seem right that such abundance should exist in the same nation where some of my students live in homes without running water. Starbucks tastes different from what it did last year. It turns out that knowing the statistics on poverty and inequity does not affect the taste of coffee the way that six months of living and teaching among it does.
In between the errands, there is time for family and friends. This time is sometimes refreshing and sometimes not. Sometimes it is an inquisition of well-meaning relatives demanding answers to repeated questions and often desiring a neatly-packaged, one-sentence explanation of exactly what makes my job so difficult (It's not the kids. Stop asking me if it's the kids). Other times it is the truly wonderful people whom I can speak honestly with either because they have been somewhere like where I am now and truly understand or because they are people who truly know me and my aversion to repeated lines of questioning and will simply listen without judgment to whatever it is I want to share in that moment. No matter whom I speak to I work to strike the right balance between speaking the harsh and uncomfortable truth about the place where I teach and working to change the outsider's narrative and perception of Mississippi and it's people.
At other times I rest and work to get ahead to make the three weeks between me and Christmas go a little more smoothly. The week goes by fast. I haven't yet had time to reconcile these 2 separate Americas, this one with it's 27 versions of hummus and the one I will return to where the black kids and the white kids go to separate schools. A week isn't a long enough time to do that, I suppose. No length of time really is.
Bayou
Friday, November 27, 2015
Sunday, November 8, 2015
October is Over (Thank God)
There is something in teaching called "Darktober." It runs roughly through the month of October and, perhaps, a little bit into November. It's characterized by exhaustion, few or no days off, the end of the first grading period, and occasional fits of crying in your car for no apparent reason.
Late fall is a time of year that is notoriously rough for all teachers, but it's particularly hard on new teachers, or at least it was on me. Days were getting shorter, my kids were getting restless, and the end of the grading period with all it's paperwork was getting closer. In the midst of all of this chaos, I tried to push my emotions to the side and just deal with the day to day. Yes, I was tired. Yes, I was frustrated. Yes, I was losing hope. But dealing with all of that could wait because fall break was coming, grades were due, and for the first time I started to feel like I was running out of time with my students. The time for teaching was now; the time for feeling things about teaching was later.
Then it rained. It rained and it rained and it rained from Sunday afternoon all the way through Monday morning. I was coming off a good week that Monday. Fall break had given me a chance to breathe and see my parents and my kids had done particularly well on their quiz the previous Friday. I was all set for another good week despite the torrential downpour, but there's nothing quite like rain to remind you of the reality of your situation and the reality of my situation is simple: I teach in one of the poorest counties in the poorest state in the country. If I had lost sight of that reality, that morning it was hard to miss as I walked through the pouring rain on our flooded outdoor campus among the old buildings with leaky roofs to the copy room where I was greeted by the notable and mysterious absence of one of the copiers (the good one, in fact). There I was, standing in the copy room, slightly drenched and trying to figure out how to teach without any copies when it finally happened: I ran out of patience.
I ran out of patience with everything that Monday morning. I was out of patience with my students. ("You turn your homework into the folder. Where you've turned it in every single day since the beginning of the year. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.") I was out of patience with myself. (Shouldn't I get it by now? Shouldn't I know what I'm doing by now? I can't keep messing up like this, for my students' sake and for mine.) But most of all I was out of patience with the system.
I was and am out of patience with this miserably failing system. I am out of patience with a system that robbed me of 11 out of 39 instructional days first quarter for testing (That's 28% of instructional time spent testing, if you were wondering). I am out of patience with a system that punishes students and schools in areas of systemic poverty by robbing them of even more resources when the schools fail to meet arbitrary measures of success. Most of all, I am out of patience with a system that treats teachers and students like the problem and not like the solution.
That day when I ran out of patience I walked to the office and filled out the paperwork to take a personal day later in the week. A day to myself to process and relax and get a little ahead of the game was just what I needed and ever since I've felt much better and more in control. I still feel out of patience, but I'm not out of energy or passion or desire to be here. When I'm running low on those things, my students help me find them back. I really, really mean it when I say that I love them, and that love kept me at it all the way through October and into the more hopeful weeks of November.
Now, as things start to look up again, it's a little bit easier to sit down and look at October from a critical distance which is why I'm writing about it now instead of as it was happening. The first week of November went by quickly and victories in the classroom are starting to seem closer and more significant. A smile from a student who hasn't cracked a smile since September, a strong performance task from a student who struggles with completing problems independently, and a kind remark from a student who I had previously had a strained relationship with. It's these things that help me put October behind me and look forward to better days to come because better days will surely come.
Late fall is a time of year that is notoriously rough for all teachers, but it's particularly hard on new teachers, or at least it was on me. Days were getting shorter, my kids were getting restless, and the end of the grading period with all it's paperwork was getting closer. In the midst of all of this chaos, I tried to push my emotions to the side and just deal with the day to day. Yes, I was tired. Yes, I was frustrated. Yes, I was losing hope. But dealing with all of that could wait because fall break was coming, grades were due, and for the first time I started to feel like I was running out of time with my students. The time for teaching was now; the time for feeling things about teaching was later.
Then it rained. It rained and it rained and it rained from Sunday afternoon all the way through Monday morning. I was coming off a good week that Monday. Fall break had given me a chance to breathe and see my parents and my kids had done particularly well on their quiz the previous Friday. I was all set for another good week despite the torrential downpour, but there's nothing quite like rain to remind you of the reality of your situation and the reality of my situation is simple: I teach in one of the poorest counties in the poorest state in the country. If I had lost sight of that reality, that morning it was hard to miss as I walked through the pouring rain on our flooded outdoor campus among the old buildings with leaky roofs to the copy room where I was greeted by the notable and mysterious absence of one of the copiers (the good one, in fact). There I was, standing in the copy room, slightly drenched and trying to figure out how to teach without any copies when it finally happened: I ran out of patience.
I ran out of patience with everything that Monday morning. I was out of patience with my students. ("You turn your homework into the folder. Where you've turned it in every single day since the beginning of the year. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.") I was out of patience with myself. (Shouldn't I get it by now? Shouldn't I know what I'm doing by now? I can't keep messing up like this, for my students' sake and for mine.) But most of all I was out of patience with the system.
I was and am out of patience with this miserably failing system. I am out of patience with a system that robbed me of 11 out of 39 instructional days first quarter for testing (That's 28% of instructional time spent testing, if you were wondering). I am out of patience with a system that punishes students and schools in areas of systemic poverty by robbing them of even more resources when the schools fail to meet arbitrary measures of success. Most of all, I am out of patience with a system that treats teachers and students like the problem and not like the solution.
That day when I ran out of patience I walked to the office and filled out the paperwork to take a personal day later in the week. A day to myself to process and relax and get a little ahead of the game was just what I needed and ever since I've felt much better and more in control. I still feel out of patience, but I'm not out of energy or passion or desire to be here. When I'm running low on those things, my students help me find them back. I really, really mean it when I say that I love them, and that love kept me at it all the way through October and into the more hopeful weeks of November.
Now, as things start to look up again, it's a little bit easier to sit down and look at October from a critical distance which is why I'm writing about it now instead of as it was happening. The first week of November went by quickly and victories in the classroom are starting to seem closer and more significant. A smile from a student who hasn't cracked a smile since September, a strong performance task from a student who struggles with completing problems independently, and a kind remark from a student who I had previously had a strained relationship with. It's these things that help me put October behind me and look forward to better days to come because better days will surely come.
Saturday, October 10, 2015
Delta Love: You Are Not An Island
Fall, I think, is a time for gratitude. Thanksgiving looms and quiet, cool weekends lend themselves to time for reflection. The changing seasons make the quick passage of time more obvious and it is impossible not to take some time to ruminate on life.
My first fall in Mississippi has made me thankful for the monarch butterflies that are flying south for winter. I am grateful for the cool breezes and the storms that sweep across the Delta bringing rain and respite from the still persistent heat. I am also thankful for the arrival of fall break this week, signaling the end of the first nine weeks. By some small miracle I've made through a quarter of the year, though not without many bumps in the road.
More than anything this fall, I am thankful for the support I've received, especially the support from other teachers. New teachers receive a lot of advice from everyone: Don't smile until Christmas. Don't cry in front of your students. Have high expectations. Go home early at least one day a week. That's all great, but the piece of advice I think is most important for new teachers is this: Reach out. Make friends. Remember that you are not alone.
The job of a teacher is hard and it can feel isolating. For large portions of the day you are alone in your room with 20 or more students. At times you will inevitably feel alone in your struggle, but you are not an island and there are people all around you who will help you through this journey.
For me, one of the most meaningful support systems I've had is the other teachers at my school and a rough last week of the grading period has left me feeling especially grateful for them. I can say with 100% confidence that I would not have made it through the year so far without them. Countless times the special education teacher who works with the math department has advised and counseled me so many times and has been endlessly patient as I fumble through my first year and try to get get a grip. More than once he has coached me through a crisis of confidence and I could not be more grateful for his presence in my classroom and his patience and generosity. The department head always has my back and is constantly helping me out, sharing lesson plans and answering my innumerable questions. The teacher next door is always looking out for me, reminding me when I most need it that I'm doing a good job, all things considered. There is a history teacher who regularly takes new teachers under her wing and will stop at nothing to help us out. She's helped me plan lessons at the last minute and rearrange my classroom to make it more conducive to learning, but more than that she's just been kind. So often it is talking and laughing with her at the end of a particularly hard day that makes me feel human again.
It doesn't stop with the veteran teachers, though. I am just as grateful for the new and relatively new teachers as I am for those who have been in the trenches for a little while longer. After all, it's these teachers who best know what you're going through since they're right there with you. I am so grateful for the new teachers at my school who I've been on this crazy ride with. It's these teachers who I've compared notes with and commiserated with. We celebrate victories together and laugh at the craziness of all of it. It is their classrooms I escape to in the morning when I need a quiet moment or during my planning period when I need a pep talk. It's also their classrooms I return to at the end of the day to cry or laugh when I need to. I can only hope that I have managed to be there for them in the way they have been there for me.
New teachers have all sorts of voices trying to offer advice and support. There will be mentors and coaches and consultants, but at the end of the day the best support is usually right next door or across the hallway. I often tell my students that in our classroom we are a team and your team is your family. I am grateful this fall to not only have such a special student team, but also a wonderful teacher team. I may be 600 miles away from my real family, but if team means family then my teacher team is the best Mississippi family I could ask for.
My first fall in Mississippi has made me thankful for the monarch butterflies that are flying south for winter. I am grateful for the cool breezes and the storms that sweep across the Delta bringing rain and respite from the still persistent heat. I am also thankful for the arrival of fall break this week, signaling the end of the first nine weeks. By some small miracle I've made through a quarter of the year, though not without many bumps in the road.
More than anything this fall, I am thankful for the support I've received, especially the support from other teachers. New teachers receive a lot of advice from everyone: Don't smile until Christmas. Don't cry in front of your students. Have high expectations. Go home early at least one day a week. That's all great, but the piece of advice I think is most important for new teachers is this: Reach out. Make friends. Remember that you are not alone.
The job of a teacher is hard and it can feel isolating. For large portions of the day you are alone in your room with 20 or more students. At times you will inevitably feel alone in your struggle, but you are not an island and there are people all around you who will help you through this journey.
For me, one of the most meaningful support systems I've had is the other teachers at my school and a rough last week of the grading period has left me feeling especially grateful for them. I can say with 100% confidence that I would not have made it through the year so far without them. Countless times the special education teacher who works with the math department has advised and counseled me so many times and has been endlessly patient as I fumble through my first year and try to get get a grip. More than once he has coached me through a crisis of confidence and I could not be more grateful for his presence in my classroom and his patience and generosity. The department head always has my back and is constantly helping me out, sharing lesson plans and answering my innumerable questions. The teacher next door is always looking out for me, reminding me when I most need it that I'm doing a good job, all things considered. There is a history teacher who regularly takes new teachers under her wing and will stop at nothing to help us out. She's helped me plan lessons at the last minute and rearrange my classroom to make it more conducive to learning, but more than that she's just been kind. So often it is talking and laughing with her at the end of a particularly hard day that makes me feel human again.
It doesn't stop with the veteran teachers, though. I am just as grateful for the new and relatively new teachers as I am for those who have been in the trenches for a little while longer. After all, it's these teachers who best know what you're going through since they're right there with you. I am so grateful for the new teachers at my school who I've been on this crazy ride with. It's these teachers who I've compared notes with and commiserated with. We celebrate victories together and laugh at the craziness of all of it. It is their classrooms I escape to in the morning when I need a quiet moment or during my planning period when I need a pep talk. It's also their classrooms I return to at the end of the day to cry or laugh when I need to. I can only hope that I have managed to be there for them in the way they have been there for me.
New teachers have all sorts of voices trying to offer advice and support. There will be mentors and coaches and consultants, but at the end of the day the best support is usually right next door or across the hallway. I often tell my students that in our classroom we are a team and your team is your family. I am grateful this fall to not only have such a special student team, but also a wonderful teacher team. I may be 600 miles away from my real family, but if team means family then my teacher team is the best Mississippi family I could ask for.
Sunday, August 30, 2015
Everything Is On Fire
It's harvest season in the Delta and with harvest season comes fire. Farmers light fire to fields in controlled burns to clear crop residue and kill weeds before the next planting season rolls around. The fires help nourish the soils and allow for a fresh and healthy start in spring.
The first time I saw a field fire, I found it quite odd. Growing up in a suburban area, smoke was never a good sign, but I've quickly come to realize that down here smoke and fire are just another element of life in the Mississippi Delta (and possibly one reason that the Delta is home to so many asthmatics). Over the last week or so I've probably seen 3 or 4 fires burning everyday along the rural highway as I drive home from work.
Today, driving to the neighboring town, I drove through a cloud of smoke from a fire burning especially close to the road and started to think of my classroom. This week it felt like everything in my classroom and the fields that surround it was on fire.
For the last three weeks, my students have talked while I was talking and played around while they were supposed to be working. What's more, they haven't learned the content they were supposed to have learned by now and that's mostly on me. Everyday I struggle with the feeling that I am running out of resources: Out of paper, out of ink, out of money, out of patience, out of time. Everyday I struggle.
I keep waiting for it to get better, for the day I magically show up and my students respect me and listen intently as I speak and grasp the material that I put in front of them, but that day's not coming unless I do something to bring it about. The truth is my students don't pay attention and struggle with the material mostly because of me. To say my students hold no responsibility for their behavior and their grades would be a lie, but it would be just as facetious to say that I am innocent in all of this. I can do so much better and sometimes I find that I am most upset not because of anything my students do but because of all of the things I know I am failing to do. I know that my classes aren't engaging enough and that I don't scaffold assessments enough so when my students fail quizzes I'm not upset with them for failing at a quiz, I'm upset with myself for failing my students.
To say that I know I'm not doing good enough would be an understatement. I know exactly how much better I need to be, but fortunately I also know that I can be better and I've committed to a plan to ensure it. I'm ditching the lecture-practice problems format for something more challenging and fun for my students. On Thursday, I gave my last lecture and tomorrow I'm going in with a new mindset and a new game plan. We're going to use math centers and project based learning and all sorts of exciting and engaging instructional strategies. Yesterday I wrote my first set of lesson plans based on my new model and for the first time I was excited as I wrote lesson plans. It's the dawn of a new week and I'm so ready for it.
The fires have burned in my classroom for almost a month now and it's time to put them out. The fields of my classroom will be left rich with all the things learned from the fires of past mistakes. Tomorrow is a new day. The fires will end and planting season will arrive.
The first time I saw a field fire, I found it quite odd. Growing up in a suburban area, smoke was never a good sign, but I've quickly come to realize that down here smoke and fire are just another element of life in the Mississippi Delta (and possibly one reason that the Delta is home to so many asthmatics). Over the last week or so I've probably seen 3 or 4 fires burning everyday along the rural highway as I drive home from work.
Today, driving to the neighboring town, I drove through a cloud of smoke from a fire burning especially close to the road and started to think of my classroom. This week it felt like everything in my classroom and the fields that surround it was on fire.
For the last three weeks, my students have talked while I was talking and played around while they were supposed to be working. What's more, they haven't learned the content they were supposed to have learned by now and that's mostly on me. Everyday I struggle with the feeling that I am running out of resources: Out of paper, out of ink, out of money, out of patience, out of time. Everyday I struggle.
I keep waiting for it to get better, for the day I magically show up and my students respect me and listen intently as I speak and grasp the material that I put in front of them, but that day's not coming unless I do something to bring it about. The truth is my students don't pay attention and struggle with the material mostly because of me. To say my students hold no responsibility for their behavior and their grades would be a lie, but it would be just as facetious to say that I am innocent in all of this. I can do so much better and sometimes I find that I am most upset not because of anything my students do but because of all of the things I know I am failing to do. I know that my classes aren't engaging enough and that I don't scaffold assessments enough so when my students fail quizzes I'm not upset with them for failing at a quiz, I'm upset with myself for failing my students.
To say that I know I'm not doing good enough would be an understatement. I know exactly how much better I need to be, but fortunately I also know that I can be better and I've committed to a plan to ensure it. I'm ditching the lecture-practice problems format for something more challenging and fun for my students. On Thursday, I gave my last lecture and tomorrow I'm going in with a new mindset and a new game plan. We're going to use math centers and project based learning and all sorts of exciting and engaging instructional strategies. Yesterday I wrote my first set of lesson plans based on my new model and for the first time I was excited as I wrote lesson plans. It's the dawn of a new week and I'm so ready for it.
The fires have burned in my classroom for almost a month now and it's time to put them out. The fields of my classroom will be left rich with all the things learned from the fires of past mistakes. Tomorrow is a new day. The fires will end and planting season will arrive.
Saturday, August 22, 2015
121 Reasons to Come Back
My second full week of teaching has shown me quite quickly that almost nothing about this job is easy. If you are looking for a job that is easy, then turn fast and run in the opposite direction of teaching.
Lesson planning is certainly not easy. Attempting to make geometry engaging to high schoolers is probably the hardest thing I've ever done and most of the time I fail (I can tell by the way their eyes glaze over when I start to talk.)
Helping all of the students who need assistance during independent practice is not easy. There are 22 of them and only 1 of me and, despite my best efforts, I have not yet mastered the ability to be in two places at once (I keep trying, though. If there were one skill that could improve my quality of life, this would be it.)
Deciding whether to buy more pencils for the classroom or some desk organizers is not easy. On the one hand, my kids need pencils, but on the other hand if my desk weren't such a mess I might not feel like I was going insane every time I tried to sit down and do work. (Ultimately, I will buy the pencils and wait for my paycheck to organize my desk. My students' needs cannot wait; mine can.)
Getting up at 5:30 am every day is not easy. In the past, getting up in the morning, usually at 8 or 9, was the single hardest part of my day and it remains an immensely challenging part of my life (Of course, getting up is one of the easiest parts of my day, now. It really only gets harder from there.)
Managing a classroom is definitely not easy (SO NOT EASY.)
Laying awake at night thinking about students and trying to figure out how to do better for them is not easy. As I try to fall asleep my mind wanders, inevitably finding it's way to my classroom where it walks up and down the rows of desks, wondering how to make accommodations for this student and how to challenge that student and how to teach all of those students who fall somewhere in between failing and excelling, all in the same class at the same time learning the same material (No wonder I am always tired).
Holding back tears when well-meaning people ask you if you are okay is not easy. "I'm fine. I'm fine" I say, as if the complete exhaustion and stress is not evident in every feature of my face and body. One day I will be fine, even if it's not today. Holding back tears was especially hard this week when it was not a teacher asking me if I was okay but a student. He heard about something that happened earlier in the day and stopped by after school to make sure I was alright. If earlier in the day I had wanted to cry because everything was going wrong, then in that moment I wanted to cry because for one minute everything was going right (Maybe not all the tears are bad.)
There is one thing, though, that is easy. Loving my students is easy. They make me laugh. Why wouldn't I laugh when my student writes that "Geometry is important because when a toddler asks you what shape an object is you can tell them about the angles, too"? They make me cry, sometimes sad tears, sometimes happy tears. They make me question. They make me question where the ball was dropped so that a student who couldn't add or subtract made it to 10th grade geometry and, more importantly, how I can ensure that I'm not the next in line to drop that ball. They make me hope. They are not jaded by the world around them and will not let the outside world tell them what a Mississippi Delta high schooler can and cannot grow up to become.
They make me come back. They make me come back to the most challenging job I've ever had or ever will have. Almost nothing about this job is easy and I come to school and leave school exhausted, but every day I come back. In the face of many challenges and especially in the face of the exhaustion, I sometimes wonder why I come back, but then I remember. I have 121 reasons to come back. They have names.
Lesson planning is certainly not easy. Attempting to make geometry engaging to high schoolers is probably the hardest thing I've ever done and most of the time I fail (I can tell by the way their eyes glaze over when I start to talk.)
Helping all of the students who need assistance during independent practice is not easy. There are 22 of them and only 1 of me and, despite my best efforts, I have not yet mastered the ability to be in two places at once (I keep trying, though. If there were one skill that could improve my quality of life, this would be it.)
Deciding whether to buy more pencils for the classroom or some desk organizers is not easy. On the one hand, my kids need pencils, but on the other hand if my desk weren't such a mess I might not feel like I was going insane every time I tried to sit down and do work. (Ultimately, I will buy the pencils and wait for my paycheck to organize my desk. My students' needs cannot wait; mine can.)
Getting up at 5:30 am every day is not easy. In the past, getting up in the morning, usually at 8 or 9, was the single hardest part of my day and it remains an immensely challenging part of my life (Of course, getting up is one of the easiest parts of my day, now. It really only gets harder from there.)
Managing a classroom is definitely not easy (SO NOT EASY.)
Laying awake at night thinking about students and trying to figure out how to do better for them is not easy. As I try to fall asleep my mind wanders, inevitably finding it's way to my classroom where it walks up and down the rows of desks, wondering how to make accommodations for this student and how to challenge that student and how to teach all of those students who fall somewhere in between failing and excelling, all in the same class at the same time learning the same material (No wonder I am always tired).
Holding back tears when well-meaning people ask you if you are okay is not easy. "I'm fine. I'm fine" I say, as if the complete exhaustion and stress is not evident in every feature of my face and body. One day I will be fine, even if it's not today. Holding back tears was especially hard this week when it was not a teacher asking me if I was okay but a student. He heard about something that happened earlier in the day and stopped by after school to make sure I was alright. If earlier in the day I had wanted to cry because everything was going wrong, then in that moment I wanted to cry because for one minute everything was going right (Maybe not all the tears are bad.)
There is one thing, though, that is easy. Loving my students is easy. They make me laugh. Why wouldn't I laugh when my student writes that "Geometry is important because when a toddler asks you what shape an object is you can tell them about the angles, too"? They make me cry, sometimes sad tears, sometimes happy tears. They make me question. They make me question where the ball was dropped so that a student who couldn't add or subtract made it to 10th grade geometry and, more importantly, how I can ensure that I'm not the next in line to drop that ball. They make me hope. They are not jaded by the world around them and will not let the outside world tell them what a Mississippi Delta high schooler can and cannot grow up to become.
They make me come back. They make me come back to the most challenging job I've ever had or ever will have. Almost nothing about this job is easy and I come to school and leave school exhausted, but every day I come back. In the face of many challenges and especially in the face of the exhaustion, I sometimes wonder why I come back, but then I remember. I have 121 reasons to come back. They have names.
Saturday, August 15, 2015
Exhaustion: A First Week of School Story
I've completed my first full week of teaching. In the hallways, veteran teachers ask me every day how I am feeling, knowing the answer before I have even opened my mouth: I'm exhausted. I am so exhausted.
They smile and nod sympathetically, but almost never try to assure me that it gets better, easier, less tiring. Maybe it doesn't get easier, I worry. Maybe I'll be this tired for the next two years. Maybe the veteran teachers don't tell me that one day I'll be less tired because they're just as tired after their tenth year as I am after my first week.
Maybe it will always be this exhausting because this isn't just the exhaustion that comes from waking up at 5:30 every day and staying at school until 5:30 every night or from being on your feet for 8 straight hours in shoes that just aren't that comfortable or from spending nights and weekends lesson planning. No, this is something more.
This exhaustion is spiritual. It's physical. It's emotional. And, above all, it's real and visceral and consuming. It hits you when you read a student's response to the prompt "Pick an important number in your life and explain" and written in front of you is the sentence "I picked the number 7 because that is the age I was when my mom died" and then you read sentences like that again and again and again. You are engulfed by it when your student writes frankly that his goal for the year is to get in less fights and almost cries when you talk to him about it. This exhaustion blankets you at night as you toss and turn, wondering how you're going to teach so many students with so few resources. It nearly knocks you over when your students look at statistics on the number of Black students suspended versus the number of White students suspended and say "That sounds like us." It eats you alive when you look at your students and realize they need so much more than a geometry teacher can give.
Certainly, this is not the type of exhaustion that goes away with experience. After a few years a teacher may have stacks of lesson plans ready to go and may have figured out what shoes are actually comfortable and may have even adjusted to the 5:30 am wake-up calls, but time and experience does not dull the senses to the suffering of others. The ache in your heart for the things some of your students deal with will never really go away, so what keeps these veteran teachers going after 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, I wonder?
They must be strong, stronger than most. Maybe it's a touch of insanity. Surely veteran teachers must have an unparalleled sense of purpose to keep at this and keep believing that they are making a difference (they are making a difference, any student will say). Mostly it must be love. It must be the swell in your heart when your most difficult student tells you that you're his favorite teacher and the pride in your chest when the girl in you see something click in your student's eyes as you explain adding negative numbers for the fourth time in two minutes. It must be love.
They smile and nod sympathetically, but almost never try to assure me that it gets better, easier, less tiring. Maybe it doesn't get easier, I worry. Maybe I'll be this tired for the next two years. Maybe the veteran teachers don't tell me that one day I'll be less tired because they're just as tired after their tenth year as I am after my first week.
Maybe it will always be this exhausting because this isn't just the exhaustion that comes from waking up at 5:30 every day and staying at school until 5:30 every night or from being on your feet for 8 straight hours in shoes that just aren't that comfortable or from spending nights and weekends lesson planning. No, this is something more.
This exhaustion is spiritual. It's physical. It's emotional. And, above all, it's real and visceral and consuming. It hits you when you read a student's response to the prompt "Pick an important number in your life and explain" and written in front of you is the sentence "I picked the number 7 because that is the age I was when my mom died" and then you read sentences like that again and again and again. You are engulfed by it when your student writes frankly that his goal for the year is to get in less fights and almost cries when you talk to him about it. This exhaustion blankets you at night as you toss and turn, wondering how you're going to teach so many students with so few resources. It nearly knocks you over when your students look at statistics on the number of Black students suspended versus the number of White students suspended and say "That sounds like us." It eats you alive when you look at your students and realize they need so much more than a geometry teacher can give.
Certainly, this is not the type of exhaustion that goes away with experience. After a few years a teacher may have stacks of lesson plans ready to go and may have figured out what shoes are actually comfortable and may have even adjusted to the 5:30 am wake-up calls, but time and experience does not dull the senses to the suffering of others. The ache in your heart for the things some of your students deal with will never really go away, so what keeps these veteran teachers going after 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, I wonder?
They must be strong, stronger than most. Maybe it's a touch of insanity. Surely veteran teachers must have an unparalleled sense of purpose to keep at this and keep believing that they are making a difference (they are making a difference, any student will say). Mostly it must be love. It must be the swell in your heart when your most difficult student tells you that you're his favorite teacher and the pride in your chest when the girl in you see something click in your student's eyes as you explain adding negative numbers for the fourth time in two minutes. It must be love.
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
A Letter to My Former Teachers
Dear Former Teachers,
The thing is, until two months ago, I thought I understood. Until two months ago, I truly believed I knew just how hard teachers work. After all, my mom was a teacher through my high school years and I knew all about the late nights and working weekends because I had witnessed them in my living room. I knew about the days teachers stayed until 6 pm because sometimes I was right there with her, plugging away at my homework in her classroom while she plugged away at hers. I was there at the summer picnics with her students and their families and I remember every single IEP season and the accompanying piles of paperwork like they just ended yesterday. So I reasoned, if there was anyone who knew how hard teachers work, it was me.
Then, I had my first impassioned debate on whether a particular procedure should be done "silently" or "quietly" and my long held belief that I got it came crashing down. I may have picked up on the amount of time put in to teaching, but I never really picked up on the amount of thought put in. I may have witnessed the long hours teachers at my high school spent on everything, but I completely missed the intention they put into every single detail about their classes. It turns out that I knew how long teachers work; I didn't have a clue how hard they work.
Now, here I sit, agonizing over the procedure for entering my classroom, and all I feel is the overwhelming desire to say "thank you."
To my teachers, at every level, thank you. Thank you for all the time you spent on all the things we never noticed. Thank you for setting up the missed class station for absences and for lining up your posters so they were even and not crooked and posting the objective every day. Thank you for making us practice how to line up for lunch and for buying a special stamp to approve our papers with and for devising a bathroom pass system. Thank you for every check or warning or consequence administered and for every carefully lettered popsicle stick used to cold call us and for every binder checked for organization and completeness.
There is a quote that I keep running into here in Mississippi, something Mother Teresa is supposed to have said: "Do small things with great love." To some extent, it has become my teacher motto and I have it hanging in a frame at home. As I sat with my roommates last night and discussed procedures for taking roll, I realized that maybe these are the small things teachers are meant to do with great love. I didn't see it when I was in school, but now it's hard to miss the love that went into every thoughtfully written classroom procedure and every carefully lettered classroom poster.
So, to my teachers, I must say again "thank you". Thank you for all of the small things and, above all, thank you for all the great love.
Sincerely,
An Old Student and New Teacher
The thing is, until two months ago, I thought I understood. Until two months ago, I truly believed I knew just how hard teachers work. After all, my mom was a teacher through my high school years and I knew all about the late nights and working weekends because I had witnessed them in my living room. I knew about the days teachers stayed until 6 pm because sometimes I was right there with her, plugging away at my homework in her classroom while she plugged away at hers. I was there at the summer picnics with her students and their families and I remember every single IEP season and the accompanying piles of paperwork like they just ended yesterday. So I reasoned, if there was anyone who knew how hard teachers work, it was me.
Then, I had my first impassioned debate on whether a particular procedure should be done "silently" or "quietly" and my long held belief that I got it came crashing down. I may have picked up on the amount of time put in to teaching, but I never really picked up on the amount of thought put in. I may have witnessed the long hours teachers at my high school spent on everything, but I completely missed the intention they put into every single detail about their classes. It turns out that I knew how long teachers work; I didn't have a clue how hard they work.
Now, here I sit, agonizing over the procedure for entering my classroom, and all I feel is the overwhelming desire to say "thank you."
To my teachers, at every level, thank you. Thank you for all the time you spent on all the things we never noticed. Thank you for setting up the missed class station for absences and for lining up your posters so they were even and not crooked and posting the objective every day. Thank you for making us practice how to line up for lunch and for buying a special stamp to approve our papers with and for devising a bathroom pass system. Thank you for every check or warning or consequence administered and for every carefully lettered popsicle stick used to cold call us and for every binder checked for organization and completeness.
There is a quote that I keep running into here in Mississippi, something Mother Teresa is supposed to have said: "Do small things with great love." To some extent, it has become my teacher motto and I have it hanging in a frame at home. As I sat with my roommates last night and discussed procedures for taking roll, I realized that maybe these are the small things teachers are meant to do with great love. I didn't see it when I was in school, but now it's hard to miss the love that went into every thoughtfully written classroom procedure and every carefully lettered classroom poster.
So, to my teachers, I must say again "thank you". Thank you for all of the small things and, above all, thank you for all the great love.
Sincerely,
An Old Student and New Teacher
Saturday, June 27, 2015
On Calculators and the Education Gap
Sometimes it's the little things that let you know just how big the problem is. For me, it's calculators.
This week in my algebra 1 class I've been teaching sequences and exponential functions. In non-math speak, that means we've been talking about calculating things that require multiplying a number by itself over and over and over again. In the real world, exponential functions are all around us. They allow us to calculate interest on financial investments and depreciation on cars as well as growth rates for elephant populations. In many ways, the financial and biological worlds operate in exponentials. They're a foundational skill of algebra and essential to how the world around us works. They're also pretty damn tedious to calculate on paper or with a four function calculator.
Unfortunately, paper and four function calculators are what my class has. Room 10 is currently in possession of exactly five calculators purchased from Walmart for 50 cents each, which I can borrow from the office on days when other teachers haven't gotten there first. These calculators add, subtract, multiply, and divide and when the battery runs out we just throw them away; a new battery costs more than a new calculator. Four functions can get you pretty far, but these calculators fall a bit short when you're asking students to calculate 1.1^8. When you have to type 1.1 x 1.1 x 1.1 x 1.1 x 1.1 x 1.1 x 1.1 x 1.1 = into a calculator, it takes a lot of time and leaves a lot of room for human error. So for the most part, my co-teacher and I are limited to giving our students pretty simple problems. On days we don't have calculators, it often means not using decimals in examples or practice problems. Even on the days we do have calculators, it might mean calculating the value of a bank account in the 5th year of receiving interest instead of the 16th year.
In contrast to my students and their 50 cent calculators, I got my first scientific calculator in the 9th grade. It had an exponent function and all of the trig functions and could convert between degrees and radians. It cost about $30 and it was an expectation that all students have their own calculator for school. By 10th grade, we were required to upgrade to an $80 graphing calculator. And, honestly, I never thought anything of it. Every day I learned how to do new things on my calculator and took it home at night to use for my homework. By the time my ACT, SAT, and AP tests rolled around, I was a master of my TI-83 and could fly through problems requiring complex arithmetic calculations.
Students in the Delta don't have that luxury. It would be ludicrous to expect parents in some of the poorest counties in the nation to provide a $30 calculator one year and an $80 one the next. Instead, most schools have a class set. It might not include enough calculators for every student to use one during class and some might be broken and almost certainly students will not be able to take these calculators home to use for homework at night. Some schools let students borrow these calculators for college admissions tests and some do not. On a day to day basis, not having a calculator might not seem like that big of a deal, but when you are taking your ACT on a Saturday morning with a calculator you've barely ever practiced with next to a kid from the private school down the road who is keying in numbers to his familiar, personal calculator, suddenly that calculator becomes a much bigger deal.
Maybe in the state with the lowest educational attainment in the country, the highest infant mortality rate, and the lowest educational attainment, calculators aren't really the problem. Maybe standing in poorest state in the Union and worrying about calculators is just me missing the forest for the trees. But perhaps not.
You see, for me, calculators, more than any one thing, have come to represent the gaping space between the educational opportunities I received and the educational opportunities my students will receive. They represent the little everyday challenges that distract you from the bigger ones, the molehills that make you forget the mountain. If poverty means not worrying about who to vote for because you're too worried about where dinner is coming from, then educational inequity means not worrying about how you'll pay for college because you're too worried about taking the ACT without a calculator.
I wish I could tell you that I've found a clever workaround for this problem in my classroom, but I haven't. I just write examples that don't look like the ones that show up on tests and count on my students, who can multiply 81 by 3 in their heads way faster than I can. At the end of the day, my students are the people who will face the biggest challenges from both a lack of calculators and a lack of educational opportunities, but I'm convinced that those students will also be exactly the people who figure out how to fix those problems for the students that come after them. I can't wait to see them do it.
This week in my algebra 1 class I've been teaching sequences and exponential functions. In non-math speak, that means we've been talking about calculating things that require multiplying a number by itself over and over and over again. In the real world, exponential functions are all around us. They allow us to calculate interest on financial investments and depreciation on cars as well as growth rates for elephant populations. In many ways, the financial and biological worlds operate in exponentials. They're a foundational skill of algebra and essential to how the world around us works. They're also pretty damn tedious to calculate on paper or with a four function calculator.
Unfortunately, paper and four function calculators are what my class has. Room 10 is currently in possession of exactly five calculators purchased from Walmart for 50 cents each, which I can borrow from the office on days when other teachers haven't gotten there first. These calculators add, subtract, multiply, and divide and when the battery runs out we just throw them away; a new battery costs more than a new calculator. Four functions can get you pretty far, but these calculators fall a bit short when you're asking students to calculate 1.1^8. When you have to type 1.1 x 1.1 x 1.1 x 1.1 x 1.1 x 1.1 x 1.1 x 1.1 = into a calculator, it takes a lot of time and leaves a lot of room for human error. So for the most part, my co-teacher and I are limited to giving our students pretty simple problems. On days we don't have calculators, it often means not using decimals in examples or practice problems. Even on the days we do have calculators, it might mean calculating the value of a bank account in the 5th year of receiving interest instead of the 16th year.
In contrast to my students and their 50 cent calculators, I got my first scientific calculator in the 9th grade. It had an exponent function and all of the trig functions and could convert between degrees and radians. It cost about $30 and it was an expectation that all students have their own calculator for school. By 10th grade, we were required to upgrade to an $80 graphing calculator. And, honestly, I never thought anything of it. Every day I learned how to do new things on my calculator and took it home at night to use for my homework. By the time my ACT, SAT, and AP tests rolled around, I was a master of my TI-83 and could fly through problems requiring complex arithmetic calculations.
Students in the Delta don't have that luxury. It would be ludicrous to expect parents in some of the poorest counties in the nation to provide a $30 calculator one year and an $80 one the next. Instead, most schools have a class set. It might not include enough calculators for every student to use one during class and some might be broken and almost certainly students will not be able to take these calculators home to use for homework at night. Some schools let students borrow these calculators for college admissions tests and some do not. On a day to day basis, not having a calculator might not seem like that big of a deal, but when you are taking your ACT on a Saturday morning with a calculator you've barely ever practiced with next to a kid from the private school down the road who is keying in numbers to his familiar, personal calculator, suddenly that calculator becomes a much bigger deal.
Maybe in the state with the lowest educational attainment in the country, the highest infant mortality rate, and the lowest educational attainment, calculators aren't really the problem. Maybe standing in poorest state in the Union and worrying about calculators is just me missing the forest for the trees. But perhaps not.
You see, for me, calculators, more than any one thing, have come to represent the gaping space between the educational opportunities I received and the educational opportunities my students will receive. They represent the little everyday challenges that distract you from the bigger ones, the molehills that make you forget the mountain. If poverty means not worrying about who to vote for because you're too worried about where dinner is coming from, then educational inequity means not worrying about how you'll pay for college because you're too worried about taking the ACT without a calculator.
I wish I could tell you that I've found a clever workaround for this problem in my classroom, but I haven't. I just write examples that don't look like the ones that show up on tests and count on my students, who can multiply 81 by 3 in their heads way faster than I can. At the end of the day, my students are the people who will face the biggest challenges from both a lack of calculators and a lack of educational opportunities, but I'm convinced that those students will also be exactly the people who figure out how to fix those problems for the students that come after them. I can't wait to see them do it.
Sunday, June 21, 2015
What I Know Now
This has been the hardest week of my life, bar none. I'm covered in bug bites, I'm exhausted, and I'm facing challenges I've never faced before in my life, challenges that, frankly, I'm completely unprepared for. Every day I fail at something in a new and creative way. Yet everyday I come back for more.
At some point, I've had to ask myself why I keep coming back. Actually, it hasn't been at some point. It's been at every point. Every single day I have to reassess what I'm here for and ask myself if I knew then what I know now, would I still have decided to come down here in the first place?
The answer is an unequivocal yes and in actual fact it doesn't have anything to do with what I know now. It has everything to do with who I know now.
Because now I have students.
Every day my students challenge me to do better. Every day they ask me questions I'm not prepared for. Every day they test me. Every day they impress me.
So I keep coming back not because I now know how to write a lesson plan. Not because I now know how to write a scaffolded assessment. And not even because I now know the literacy rates in the Mississippi are the lowest in the country.
I keep coming back because now I know them. I know the student who wouldn't speak at a more than a whisper on Monday and was my most active class participant by Friday. I know the student who wants to design video games but can't read anywhere near grade level. I know the student who is taking Algebra I for the fourth time entering his senior year. I know the students who understand and explain everything almost perfectly out loud and who then get 25% and 30% on their daily assessments. I know the students (all of them, every single one) who want nothing more than to succeed, who haven't been given the tools to know how.
And when I think of them, I wonder how anyone could turn away. I wonder why so many people already have. I certainly can't. Not when I know them. Not when I know who I know now.
...
Weekly Gratitude: I have the most wonderful lesson planning team in the state of Mississippi, probably the country. The four of us spend almost every waking minute together, but we don't hate each other yet. In fact, we really like each other and we have a surprising amount of fun planning lessons and working our butts off every night. To them, I just want to say thank you and I couldn't do it without you!
Challenge: Often during my lessons students are en pointe verbally and can clearly demonstrate that they're understanding the material, but when it comes to written work, their intelligence and understanding just isn't showing up. It weighs on my mind all the time.
Quote of the Week: "Everybody's a genius, but if you judge a fish by it's ability to climb a tree, it will live it's whole life believing it is stupid." -Albert Einstein
Jamming To: "Shenandoah" by Goldmund (Folk music is great for studying and working!)
Mississippi Fun Fact: Mississippi was the first state to allow a woman to deliver mail. Mamie Thomas started her route in 1914.
At some point, I've had to ask myself why I keep coming back. Actually, it hasn't been at some point. It's been at every point. Every single day I have to reassess what I'm here for and ask myself if I knew then what I know now, would I still have decided to come down here in the first place?
The answer is an unequivocal yes and in actual fact it doesn't have anything to do with what I know now. It has everything to do with who I know now.
Because now I have students.
Every day my students challenge me to do better. Every day they ask me questions I'm not prepared for. Every day they test me. Every day they impress me.
So I keep coming back not because I now know how to write a lesson plan. Not because I now know how to write a scaffolded assessment. And not even because I now know the literacy rates in the Mississippi are the lowest in the country.
I keep coming back because now I know them. I know the student who wouldn't speak at a more than a whisper on Monday and was my most active class participant by Friday. I know the student who wants to design video games but can't read anywhere near grade level. I know the student who is taking Algebra I for the fourth time entering his senior year. I know the students who understand and explain everything almost perfectly out loud and who then get 25% and 30% on their daily assessments. I know the students (all of them, every single one) who want nothing more than to succeed, who haven't been given the tools to know how.
And when I think of them, I wonder how anyone could turn away. I wonder why so many people already have. I certainly can't. Not when I know them. Not when I know who I know now.
...
Weekly Gratitude: I have the most wonderful lesson planning team in the state of Mississippi, probably the country. The four of us spend almost every waking minute together, but we don't hate each other yet. In fact, we really like each other and we have a surprising amount of fun planning lessons and working our butts off every night. To them, I just want to say thank you and I couldn't do it without you!
Challenge: Often during my lessons students are en pointe verbally and can clearly demonstrate that they're understanding the material, but when it comes to written work, their intelligence and understanding just isn't showing up. It weighs on my mind all the time.
Quote of the Week: "Everybody's a genius, but if you judge a fish by it's ability to climb a tree, it will live it's whole life believing it is stupid." -Albert Einstein
Jamming To: "Shenandoah" by Goldmund (Folk music is great for studying and working!)
Mississippi Fun Fact: Mississippi was the first state to allow a woman to deliver mail. Mamie Thomas started her route in 1914.
Sunday, June 14, 2015
Twas The Night Before Summer School
Please enjoy this attempt at poetry:
Twas' the night before summer school, when all through the dorm
Not a corp member was stirring, not even to discuss a class norm;
The lesson plans were tucked in binders with care,
In hopes that students would soon be there.
The new teachers were nestled all snug in their beds,
While vision statements danced in their heads;
The corp members in their caps,
Had just settled down for all too short naps.
When out on the quad their arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew in a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
When what to my wondering eyes should appear,
A crowd of staff members who with enthusiasm did cheer,
"Now, Eastern North Carolina! Now Arkansas! Now Appalachia!
On Mississippi! On South Louisiana! On Louisiana Delta!
To math and English and science, To the students big and small,
Now teach away! teach away! teach away all!"
They sprang to the buses, to their teams they gave a whistle,
And away they all shot, away like a missile.
But I heard them exclaim, ere they drove out of sight,
"Happy first day of school to all, and to all a good night!"
>>>
Weekly Gratitude: I'm super grateful to have an awesome CMA (corps member advisor) who always answers our questions, brings us candy, and believes in us!
Challenge: I reassess my conception of exhaustion every single day. And I'm sure it will only get harder from here.
Quote of the Week: "A ship is safe in harbor, but that is not what ships are for." -William G.T. Shedd
Jamming To: "Once I've Done It" by April Geesbreght
Mississippi Fun Fact: Barq's Root Beer was invented in Mississippi in 1898.
Twas' the night before summer school, when all through the dorm
Not a corp member was stirring, not even to discuss a class norm;
The lesson plans were tucked in binders with care,
In hopes that students would soon be there.
The new teachers were nestled all snug in their beds,
While vision statements danced in their heads;
The corp members in their caps,
Had just settled down for all too short naps.
When out on the quad their arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew in a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
When what to my wondering eyes should appear,
A crowd of staff members who with enthusiasm did cheer,
"Now, Eastern North Carolina! Now Arkansas! Now Appalachia!
On Mississippi! On South Louisiana! On Louisiana Delta!
To math and English and science, To the students big and small,
Now teach away! teach away! teach away all!"
They sprang to the buses, to their teams they gave a whistle,
And away they all shot, away like a missile.
But I heard them exclaim, ere they drove out of sight,
"Happy first day of school to all, and to all a good night!"
>>>
Weekly Gratitude: I'm super grateful to have an awesome CMA (corps member advisor) who always answers our questions, brings us candy, and believes in us!
Challenge: I reassess my conception of exhaustion every single day. And I'm sure it will only get harder from here.
Quote of the Week: "A ship is safe in harbor, but that is not what ships are for." -William G.T. Shedd
Jamming To: "Once I've Done It" by April Geesbreght
Mississippi Fun Fact: Barq's Root Beer was invented in Mississippi in 1898.
Sunday, June 7, 2015
What's to Come
Induction is done and Institute starts tomorrow. For my followers who are less familiar with TFA, let me translate: Induction was a three day program in Mississippi for Mississippi corps members involving discussions of educational issues unique to Mississippi, culturally relevant teaching, and identity. This week starts five weeks of something called Institute and that's a little more complicated.
Institute is a five week training program that involves teaching for part of the day and learning for the rest of the day. The Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana Delta, North Carolina, and Appalachia regions have come together in Cleveland, MS at Delta State University for this purpose.
Every morning we load up a bunch of school buses and head out to local schools to teach summer school. After the kids go home in the afternoon, we continue to have meetings and various development sessions before returning to Delta State for the evening where we sometimes have more sessions and sometimes have time to relax, plan lessons, and (maybe occasionally) sleep.
Our five weeks at Institute is critical to both getting certified and getting a little bit more comfortable at the front of a classroom. I have to say that I, for one, am psyched! I'm so excited to get started tomorrow. This week we'll mostly be doing professional development and training and we should start teaching next week, but we will at least be in our schools for our meetings this week.
If you haven't guessed yet, the coming five weeks are going to be really crazy, hectic even. I'll try to keep everyone up to date on what's going on, but for weeks when I can't write a lot because I have four lesson plans due or I have to go house hunting or whatever else might come up, I've devised a system. Every week I'll check in with something I'm grateful for that week, something that's been a challenge, a quote that's been helpful that week, a song that I'm listening to that week, and a Mississippi fun fact.
With that said, let's get started!
Weekly Gratitude: I'm so grateful for the Cleveland community! They've been so welcoming and have shown us the true meaning of Southern hospitality.
Challenge: I'm tired already! For an introvert, a week of meeting new people constantly can be pretty exhausting and it's been a little bit challenging to remind myself to find time to myself in the midst of the chaos.
Quote of the Week: "What's comin' will come and we'll meet it when it does." -Hagrid
Jamming To: "I Bet My Life" by Imagine Dragons
Mississippi Fun Fact: The only official Grammy Museum outside of LA is being built right here in Cleveland and it's set to open in November. Mississippi really is the home of "American music"!
Institute is a five week training program that involves teaching for part of the day and learning for the rest of the day. The Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana Delta, North Carolina, and Appalachia regions have come together in Cleveland, MS at Delta State University for this purpose.
Every morning we load up a bunch of school buses and head out to local schools to teach summer school. After the kids go home in the afternoon, we continue to have meetings and various development sessions before returning to Delta State for the evening where we sometimes have more sessions and sometimes have time to relax, plan lessons, and (maybe occasionally) sleep.
Our five weeks at Institute is critical to both getting certified and getting a little bit more comfortable at the front of a classroom. I have to say that I, for one, am psyched! I'm so excited to get started tomorrow. This week we'll mostly be doing professional development and training and we should start teaching next week, but we will at least be in our schools for our meetings this week.
If you haven't guessed yet, the coming five weeks are going to be really crazy, hectic even. I'll try to keep everyone up to date on what's going on, but for weeks when I can't write a lot because I have four lesson plans due or I have to go house hunting or whatever else might come up, I've devised a system. Every week I'll check in with something I'm grateful for that week, something that's been a challenge, a quote that's been helpful that week, a song that I'm listening to that week, and a Mississippi fun fact.
With that said, let's get started!
Weekly Gratitude: I'm so grateful for the Cleveland community! They've been so welcoming and have shown us the true meaning of Southern hospitality.
Challenge: I'm tired already! For an introvert, a week of meeting new people constantly can be pretty exhausting and it's been a little bit challenging to remind myself to find time to myself in the midst of the chaos.
Quote of the Week: "What's comin' will come and we'll meet it when it does." -Hagrid
Jamming To: "I Bet My Life" by Imagine Dragons
Mississippi Fun Fact: The only official Grammy Museum outside of LA is being built right here in Cleveland and it's set to open in November. Mississippi really is the home of "American music"!
Tuesday, June 2, 2015
Induction Update
I'm finally settled in at Delta State and I have a little time to catalog my thoughts. I moved in on Friday and over the last few days have been traveling the state and getting to know both Mississippi and a small group of my fellow corp members on a trip called the Justice Journey. Justice Journey was a remarkable and rewarding experience and has energized me to get through the next six weeks.
Today has been busy, too, with other Mississippi corp members moving into the dorms and the start of Induction and a lot of things are running through my mind. Induction is a three day program before Institute where we come together as a regional corps to learn about Mississippi and the unique history of education in the state. Following Induction we have a multi-regional Institute that lasts for five weeks. During this time I will be student teaching in the morning and attending educational sessions in the afternoons and evenings. I have been promised over and over again that I won't know what tired really feels like until Institute.
In all honesty, I'm feeling a lot of things right now. I'm exhausted from a day of running around and helping another corp member move in. I'm nervous about the six weeks ahead of me and the two years that will come after that. I'm excited to meet new people and make new friends. I'm relieved to be settled in. But above all I'm eager. I'm eager to get to work.
The work TFA is doing in Mississippi is important, but it is also demanding, challenging. With that in mind, I may not ever really be ready to get started, but I am no longer content to simply sit and wait. After all, if not me, who? If not now, when?
Today has been busy, too, with other Mississippi corp members moving into the dorms and the start of Induction and a lot of things are running through my mind. Induction is a three day program before Institute where we come together as a regional corps to learn about Mississippi and the unique history of education in the state. Following Induction we have a multi-regional Institute that lasts for five weeks. During this time I will be student teaching in the morning and attending educational sessions in the afternoons and evenings. I have been promised over and over again that I won't know what tired really feels like until Institute.
In all honesty, I'm feeling a lot of things right now. I'm exhausted from a day of running around and helping another corp member move in. I'm nervous about the six weeks ahead of me and the two years that will come after that. I'm excited to meet new people and make new friends. I'm relieved to be settled in. But above all I'm eager. I'm eager to get to work.
The work TFA is doing in Mississippi is important, but it is also demanding, challenging. With that in mind, I may not ever really be ready to get started, but I am no longer content to simply sit and wait. After all, if not me, who? If not now, when?
Wednesday, May 27, 2015
The Other Eight Billion
When I was in middle school and high school, I was a big fan of "The Princess Diaries", both Meg Cabot's YA series and the Disney movie starring Anne Hathaway and Julie Andrews. In the movie Mia Thermopolis (Hathaway) discovers that she is, in fact, not just a normal teenager struggling with normal teenager issues, but also the princess of a small European nation called Genovia. Under the tutelage of the queen aka her grandma aka Julie Andrews, Mia learns to be a princess and is eventually forced to decide whether or she really wants the gig at all. The movie's climax involves a downpour, a chauffeur coming to the rescue, and a sopping wet princess giving one of my favorite movie speeches.
In Mia's speech to a ballroom full of dignitaries, low-level royalty, and her closest friends and family, she frankly discusses the amount of time she spends thinking about herself before coming to the conclusion that now she must instead think of others and take the opportunity to make a difference. It's that speech that's on my mind tonight.
The last three weeks have been rough for me. I'm stuck in between two worlds, the one I'm leaving and the one I'm headed for, and everyday I've felt both of those worlds pulling at me. It's been a constant roller coaster of emotions: I'm scared to move to Mississippi. I'm sad to leave my dogs. I'm anxious to get to work. I'm nervous about teaching.
Of course, it's fair to be feeling all of these things, but when I think about me too much, I tend to freak out. When I think about what I'm about to give up or the things I'm saying good-bye to or the roads I'm not taking, I feel scared and wonder if I can do this. But when I can step back and remind myself that this isn't about me, then I feel empowered. When I think of the people I am serving and the cause I am working for, then I know I can do this, I know I must do this.
So as I leave tomorrow morning, I hope I can remember one particular line from Princess Mia's speech: "If I cared about the other seven billion [people] out there instead of just me, that's probably a much better use of my time."
It's simple and it may be cliche, but it's also true. We are not alone in this endeavor of carving out a life on planet Earth, and if every one of us spent a little more time thinking about the other few billion people out there, we might find that both our lives and our world got better. I may not be able to think of all of the other eight billion people now sharing the Earth with me every day of my life, but I hope on the tough days over the next two years I will be able to remember to at least think of the 20 people sitting in front of me and waiting to learn some algebra.
Wednesday, April 29, 2015
To the Protestors in Baltimore and To My Future Students
I come to you as a white woman, a person who has never lost
a friend to violence, who has never been profiled based on the color of my
skin, a person who has never been afraid of those people who have sworn to
serve and protect me.
I come to you as a person who has been taught her whole life
to stand up for what she believes, a person who has so often been encouraged to
speak out, but a person who is unsure how to do that in this moment.
I come to you conflicted, wondering whether it is my place
to say anything at all on what is happening in Baltimore, wondering if I cannot
serve you better by simply being quiet and listening.
I come to you so confused about what to say and how to say
it, but I also come to you as a person who feels that she must say something, a person who must acknowledge
that now is the time for justice and a person who desperately wants to help
bring it about.
What I have to say to you, the protestors in Baltimore and
in Ferguson and in New York and across the world, and what I have to say to
you, my future students, is this:
I am on your side.
I am here and I am listening. I know that my voice is not
the one that most needs to be heard in this conversation. I have questioned
whether it needs to be heard at all. Surely, a conversation needs to take
place, but I know my role in that conversation must first and foremost be to
listen to those who have been most affected by pervasive injustice, to those
who have lived with it every day of their lives.
Know that I welcome your advice on how to be a better ally.
I know I will mess up and that I already have many times, but if there is
something I can do better, please tell me. I am listening.
I am listening to you and I am ready to act when you ask me
to. I will step back, lower my voice, and listen to your stories and your
words. I will stand by you in the protests line. If you tell me there is no
seat at the table for me for a particular discussion, I will honor that. When you
do invite me to the table, I will come humbly and respectfully and with an open
heart.
Until you ask me to speak again, this is the last time I
will speak on this subject because I believe so fully that now is a time for me
to listen.
To you, my students, I will listen.
Monday, March 30, 2015
Welcome to the South, Y'all: My First Trip to Mississippi
 |
| A sign in a highway rest stop. |
“There’s so much nothing. It’s just nothing everywhere. I’ve
never seen so much nothing in my life,” I kept repeating emphatically to my
parents as we drove into the Mississippi Delta on our first trip to visit the
state that will in two months be my home.
We had arrived in Mississippi in mid-February for a race. I
had been offered the opportunity to come help out at the Mississippi River Marathon, which benefits Teach for America. I was visiting over Valentine’s Day
weekend and would have the change to get to know the state and it’s people a
little bit while I was there, including meeting community members and current
corps members and taking some time to visit some classrooms. When the chance
was presented to me back in December I jumped on it and immediately set about
the surprisingly easy task of getting my parents on board for the ten-hour car
ride.
When we set out early on a Thursday morning, I was eager to
see a new part of the country and to learn a little bit more about my new home,
but I was nonetheless nervous. When I made my commitment to teach in
Mississippi I knew I was going to end up feeling like a stranger in a strange
land, and I feared that visiting the state for the first time would exacerbate
my nerves about the coming foreignness.
The ride was long and mostly boring. Because I live in the
very southwest corner of Ohio, there were really only three states to drive
through on our trip: Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi. Having driven
through Kentucky and Tennessee many times before, I would have to wait for the
prospect of a new landscape to observe until we had ventured all the way
through the familiar foothills of the mid-South. Fortunately, with me and both
my parents driving, the long trip was a little less taxing and no one openly
objected to listening to Taylor Swift’s “1989” on repeat during my three hour
driving shift.
The first thing worth noting when we reached Mississippi was
the welcome center. As a family of mildly versed travelers, my parents and I
had seen many-a-welcome-center, but Mississippi’s was the first that offered
free coffee to weary road-trippers. As my parents perused travel brochures
about the many Civil War sites and sleepy towns that they could visit, I paced
around nervously, suddenly very aware of how much my life was going to change
in four months.
As we entered the Delta it was hard not to notice just how
flat everything was. Growing up in the Midwest, I thought I knew what flat
looked like. After all, I had been subjected to the torturous drive through
Indiana on multiple occasions, but the truth is Indiana ain’t got nothing on
the Mississippi Delta. The Delta is as flat as a piece of paper and it left me
feeling oddly exposed. For miles around us all I could see was empty fields
interrupted occasionally by the odd clump of trees or a lone building.
In addition to the disconcerting emptiness, it was also hard
not to notice the many vivid colors. We were driving in at sunset and I have to
say I had never before seen a sunset quite like a Delta sunset. Because the
land is so flat, the sky swallows everything and every color you’ve ever
associated with a sunset surrounds you fully. Drinking in the colors of my
first Delta sunset, I clung to the notion that maybe this masterpiece in the
sky was a sign that I would find good things among the foreign scenery.
When we finally arrived in Indianola, where we were to meet
some corps members for dinner, it came to my attention that I had no dress
shoes to wear to visit schools the next day. Since we had a half an hour to
spare before dinner, we found a store and, standing in the shoe aisle, I
jokingly remarked to my mom that I always knew that one day I would end up
frantically searching for dress shoes in a crowded Walmart in the middle of
nowhere and she replied that she wasn’t sure where she’d gone wrong in raising
a daughter who wouldn’t double check that she’d packed appropriate footwear.
After the unfortunate shoe mishap, things started to look
up. Over the course of the next two days I was able to talk with current corps
members who provided practical advice (Invest heavily in bug spray) and another
future corps member from Alabama who shared a little bit about life in the
South (No, not all Southerners like to eat in restaurants in gas stations;
that’s a Mississippi thing) and community members who graciously welcomed me
and my family to their home for dinner (And, in one meal, demonstrated the
absolute culinary superiority of the South).
I was also assaulted by kindness from strangers. People
would say hello and ask how I was doing even though I had never met them
before. Everywhere I went strangers had something nice to say. One day I
chatted with a waiter in a Mexican restaurant about making the move out from
the big city and the next I spoke at length with a man who was in the middle of
running a marathon in every one of the fifty states. It quickly became evident
to me that Southern hospitality and friendliness is no myth and every one of
those conversations eased my fears about the coming transition.
On the way back home, my parents asked me if I thought the
trip had been worth it. I responded that it had been. I was so much less scared
of what lay in front of me after my two days in Mississippi. Perhaps I had only
seen a fraction of the state and of the story, but after being barraged at home
by negative stereotypes of the Deep South, it was comforting to learn that the
reality just wasn’t that simple. My dad agreed with this assessment, saying
that before he had visited he had a pretty negative image of Mississippi,
constructed from history, current events, and Hollywood portrayals of the
state, but after our visit his understanding shifted.
Looking back a month and a half later, I like to think I was
right about the sunset being a sign. The kindness and hospitality I saw in
Mississippi assuaged my anxieties significantly, though, to be sure, they still
linger. I understand that the reality of Mississippi is likely neither the
frightening stereotype I had previously imagined or the narrow slice I saw in
my brief visit. Likely, it is a mixture of both and, just like the people of
the state the statistics are complex. Mississippi may have the lowest per
capita income in the country, but they rank second highest in per capita
charitable giving. I suspect that my
experience will reflect the realities and complexities of this fact and, while
I may find myself surrounded by poverty and destitution, I will also find
myself surrounded by compassion and community, the vivid colors amongst that
flat, flat landscape.
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