Educate by Jamarcus W.

Started off in da school
Dets my only education

Listen to my teacher
Dets my only motivation

Man Da world go around
In a whole rotation

I got four teachers witd me
I call em the temptation

I had to raise my head up
Just to get my life rite

Aint Nobody gone stop me
Man I see none of em in sight

Gotta meal up on my plate
So I had to take a bite

Man I aint even trippin
Cause my shoes really tight

Man I had me a dream
Just like Martin Luther King

Heard da clouds they really open
Man I think da wings

See me riding away in my zone
In a six door limousine

Man we in this junk together
Hold our hands just like a team

Lord knows I'm really blessed
From my feet up to my chest

Life is really hard
Like a nine week test

I cant let myself down
So I'm still gone do my best

I ain't got time for da jokin
Im finna run me up a check

Cleveland is where i live
Ima always keep it real

Mr Burgoon he got my back
Like a blue and white peal

I don't care about a deal
Cause I'm out chasing a meal

Man life is really crazy
All these peoples getting killed

I got my hands up cause
I'm in my zone

I had more problems that
it made me stand strong

If you hate me then you
can go home

Cause im harder than a stone

If I eva become rich ima
put the school on

Im catching chills up in my bone

But rite now im finna be gone

Classroom Management: 5 Tips for Survival Mode

As my month of teaching summer school in the Mississippi Delta draws to a close, I feel like I am finally getting the hang of it and coming out of survival mode. My class has good days and bad days, but everything I have heard about your first year of teaching is absolutely true: nothing will prepare you for this experience.

With that thought in mind, I have five management tips for first-year teachers who are in their first month of school. These ideas and strategies have been keeping my class afloat, and while I am not an expert, and my class is a thousand miles away from perfect, I think these are some awesome starting points for anyone who's terrified of their first day or really struggling through the first week or month. Hope it's helpful!

1. Make your rules, expectations, and procedures crystal clear. 
For a lot of new teachers, and especially those of us who teach high school, we expect certain standards of behavior to be a given. We expect our students not to shout in the hallway. We expect our students not to interrupt us when we're talking. We expect our students not to push each other or put their hands on each other. The first thing I learned last week is that I need to act like none of my students have ever sat in a classroom, even though this is of course, not true. Teachers have different expectations. Additionally, your students may try to test you to see how strict you are, and then claim that they did not understand the rule or procedure. It will take several weeks to teach your students each procedure, but I would start with the rules and the basics on Day 1. Here are our rules. Here is how we enter the classroom. Here is how we show our teacher that we're paying attention. Here is how we ask a question. Here is what we do if we need to get up for something.

This process continues into the next few weeks of school when you do new things. I taught my students the expectations for group work the first time we actually did group work, not on the first day. Do whatever you can to set your students up for success by making sure that they understand your expectations. Keep your rules and consequences system posted somewhere visible in the classroom (yes, even if you teach high school). Do not give students any excuses when they misbehave. Let them take ownership of their behavior by being clear on what you want.

2. Make conscious efforts to show love to your students. 
This is probably the single most important thing you can do for your students, but I'm putting it second since you will probably never reach this point until you master #1. However, they work in tandem, because students who believe that you love them (and students who love you) will do most anything to meet your expectations. Praise students for excellence. Offer incentives for good behavior and rewards for excellent work. LISTEN to your students, and respond to their thoughts, ideas, fears, and dreams thoughtfully and genuinely. I am baking my kids brownies every week. That might not be for every teacher, but I think it's really important. Not only does it show my students love, but it also puts me in the right frame-of-mind midweek (they get brownies on Wednesday). Something about the process of going to buy the ingredients and spending about 45 minutes doing the baking gives me time to reflect on how the week has been going and what I want to accomplish for the rest of the week. Another way that I show love to my students is writing them each a personalized note every week. I might tell them how proud I am of their work on a specific assignment, or let them know that I enjoyed a particular comment they made. I tell them to keep up the good work. You have to take special care to show love to your "problem students" because it's likely they need your love the most. Though I do not want to make assumptions, I get the distinct feeling that some of my kids have never been told by a teacher that she enjoys their presence in class, or that she looks forwards to seeing them every day. If you have a child in your class that you feel you cannot show love to, get out of the profession. This profession isn't for you.

3. Do not be afraid to put the hammer down.
I am not hard on my kids in spite of loving them, I am hard on my kids because I love them. Get a feel early on for how you will manage your classroom, and stick to your guns. Usually, students will respond well to a casual warning. Trust your instincts about whether you can casually redirect behavior or whether you need to start a student on formal consequences. I really do not like formal consequences. I don't like the valuable class time that it takes, and I don't like the way it can damage my relationship with the student if not handled correctly. I have to really push myself to stick to my system and give formal consequences, but if I fail to do this, class will go to hell in a hand basket it .07 seconds. STICK TO YOUR GUNS!

4. Treat your "worst" students like your best students.
Even new teachers can usually identify their "troublemakers" from the very first day. Find your troublemakers. Write down their names. Remember who they are. Then spend every day treating these students like your best-behaved, best-grades, always-sweet students. Even if your stomach sinks every time they walk in the door and you think "oh God, he's back," make your student feel as though he is your favorite student in the world. This helps build a relationship with students who might otherwise cause problems, but also makes it easier to redirect behavior. If they know that you like them, and know that you expect excellence from them, they will eventually be tricked into wanting to give you excellence everyday to keep you from being disappointed. If a kid gives you problems in the first week, you need to sit down and come up with a game plan for how you're going to reach that student. Which brings me to...

5. Don't hold grudges.
This is huge. Stop taking student behavior, student apathy, and student failures personally. Just like you, they're not perfect people. And unlike you, they do not have the maturity, selflessness, and foresight to understand how their behavior makes you feel or affects their future goals. In fact, your feelings are the very last thing on their minds. Teenagers are fundamentally selfish creatures. That's not to say they're bad people. They just have not grown up enough yet to see much besides their own emotions, wants, and needs. I am still young enough to remember being a teenager, and I definitely did not appreciate what the people around me were trying to do for me. Understand this about your students, and remember that they are usually not Out To Get You.

Keeping that in mind, find ways to start the next day fresh if you had a bad day with a student. Something that works well for me and helps me reflect on the situation is writing letters to my student if we have a particularly rough day. I will acknowledge why the student got upset, take responsibility for anything I did wrong, express my appreciation for the student, and make suggestions about what we can do better today. I also include a slip at the bottom of the letter for students to fill out and return to me.

I include the bottom part, because for my students, there are often things going on outside of school that are very difficult to deal with. These issues can end up affecting them in class, so if I know that they are having a hard time dealing with something, I can refrain from cold calling them or forcing them to do group work or whatever.


I hope that you found some of my ideas helpful! I am struggling through this first year of teaching, and these are the strategies I'm using to keep my classroom semi-sane. At the end of the day, even if I'm not teaching perfect lessons or managing my classroom perfectly, I think I am at least making sure that my students know they are safe, cared for, and respected. If you can establish this foundation early on, I feel like the rest will come. Hang in there!

-Love, Linds

Day 1 Fun!

My kids are the best. Today went a thousand times better than I expected. I'm not sure why I let some individuals start to get to me as far as thinking that things would be much different in the classroom here than anywhere else, but today was a pretty typical first day.

Our roster had 11 students, and we had nine show up today. Our class has five girls and four boys, but we are expecting some new students tomorrow. Though we had to give some preliminary assessments today to see where we should be focusing our efforts with the students this summer, it was mostly spent as a get-to-know-you day, which I loved. My students have some amazing goals, from working as an OB/GYN to going to law school to playing professional sports. It is so fun during the first week to watch everybody's personality come out. We have some very quiet kids and some very obnoxious kids (I mean that in the best way possible, since I'm obnoxious and I like obnoxious teenagers).

We did teacher introductions first, and I let them know that this is my third year in the classroom and that we can do this summer the easy way or the hard way.

Me: "I'll be good to you, if you'll be good to me."
Student: "So you're like a real teacher?" (obviously, they have experienced TFA teachers before)
Me: "Absolutely, which means I will put up with exactly zero foolishness over the next four weeks."

This demeanor does not come super naturally to me, since generally my only rule is that you can do whatever you want as long as it doesn't hurt yourself or others, but it's always good to establish yourself as the leader in the classroom at the beginning with teenagers even if the way your class functions is not really lecture-based or teacher-oriented.

For me, the best way to go about "classroom management" is to earn students' trust, and to make them like you on a personal level. Once a student likes you, trusts you, and believes 100% that you have their best interests at heart, they'll basically do anything you ask them to do in the classroom even if they don't think it's fun. This is key, which is why our co-lab focused so much on relationship building today.

We spent the morning going over our rules and procedures, and administering our diagnostic assessments. Though my team of four teachers usually teaches in individual blocks, we decided to effectively co-teach today to spend as much time getting to know our kids as possible. There was a little bit of back-talk and disrespect going on in the beginning, but nothing major. I think it takes awhile to establish any credibility with our kids because they think that TFA is synonymous with crap teachers that come in to practice on them in the summer. In fact, one of my students asked me today if I was going to teach at Cleveland High (the white school) in the fall after I finish practicing on them. I told him that I wouldn't teach at Cleveland High for a million dollars, which is just true, but it's also just the right thing to say to a group of students who are attending school in a district that has never been desegregated and are painfully aware of the perks that Cleveland gets in comparison to East Side. It's a very complicated issue in our district, and I don't feel like I'm in-the-know enough to write about it just yet, but I will include some articles for your reading pleasure at the end of my post.

We are supposed to each lunch with our students, which is definitely my favorite part of the day. I gleefully sat right in the middle of our lunch table to force kids to sit around me (yep, I'm That Teacher) and got to commiserate with them about cafeteria food, explain what being a vegetarian is (might as well start pushing my agenda early), and find out how they like to spend their time.

Biology has the kids in the afternoon until we dismiss at 1, so I finished decorating the classroom during that time. I really hope I can get some pictures of our room up tomorrow! My ELA team teacher and I also graded our students reading assessments, and were pleasantly surprised to see that about half of our kids are reading on grade level and the other half are reading just a hair under grade level. I was prepared for the worst, so it looks like we are going to have a really good summer.

Getting to know our kids on a more personal level has been difficult at times. Some of their stories are so difficult to hear. I have kids who are going through things I never had to face at their age and will probably never have to face. They are strong kids, and I have a lot to learn from them. I'm really sensitive to people's feelings, so in that sense, this will be really draining work for me. I just want to stand between my kids and the world and make sure that nothing bad ever happens to them.

Behavior was not a problem in our class today, although I think a lot of classes had some serious problems. I want to knock on wood, because I feel like tomorrow is going to really tell the tale of how behavior is going to go for the rest of the summer. It has been a little tricky working out cohesive classroom management with three other teachers. Two of the teachers on our team will start students up the consequence ladder pretty early on in the game. We give a verbal warning, a formal warning, a focus slip, a reflection essay, and finally, removal from the classroom, as our escalation of consequences, but I usually don't start students down that road until they are being a real nuisance. For example, if a kid has his head down, I will just remind him to put his head up, and I won't issue an "official" warning unless it happens again. I don't think either way is the wrong way to do it, I've just found that it's more my style to keep things moving and issuing casual reminders to engage as long as the behavior is not chronic or distracting from learning. I don't have a problem picking out my troublemakers early on and ribbing them a little bit periodically to keep them on track, i.e. "Dominique is my star student today. You're working hard for me today, aren't you Dominique?" You have to be careful, because some of the shyer students can't handle this type of kidding from their teacher. I think that being able to get a good read on kids from the get-go is one of my biggest strengths. One of the biggest things with high schoolers is that you CAN'T IGNORE YOUR TROUBLEMAKERS. They WILL NOT be going away any time soon, so you can't pretend like they will. I call my troublemakers on the floor all the time so that they know I've got my eye on them. #ThatTeacher

After Day 1, I'm feeling so energized and excited for our summer class. I am still not really getting enough sleep, which is a big problem, but I'm hoping I can manage my schedule and time a little better as I get the hang of things. Tomorrow is our last relatively unstructured day, and on Wednesday, we jump into narrative essays. I'm so happy to be here in the Delta, I'm so glad this place is my home!

For Your Reading Pleasure:

• U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT HEARING ABOUT CLEVELAND SCHOOL DISTRICT DESEGREGATION
• Cleveland school travels road to success

-Love, Linds

*Student names have been changed. 

**All of these opinions are solely my own, yay. 

Eyes on the Prize

Institute is particularly brutal. This past week has been so long. I haven't had time to do a single thing I enjoy doing, since all of my free time is now spent catching up on sleep. I have spent a lot of this week feeling annoyed/frustrated/angry. I have been ready all summer to set up my classroom, plan my lessons, and meet my students, and in a lot of ways I feel like this first week of institute has moved too slowly for me. Very little time is given to corps members to actually work independently or in groups. The majority of my time has been spent listening to people from the national TFA staff talk at me about various obscure methods and educational theories that are better practiced than just talked about. I understand that they are trying to teach us to be teachers, but for those of us who have experience in the classroom, it just feels like we are being held back from being the effective teachers we already know how to be, and for everyone without any experience, I am getting the sense that it's causing more confusion than clarity.

I know that the staff are doing their best, and many have been deeply encouraging to me this week at times when I was feeling low or upset.

I just don't think there is a good model for teaching teachers in five weeks. I knew coming in that I do not like this model, and all of my initial concerns are completely justified. I have heard rumors that TFA is switching a year-long institute model sometime in the future, which I think will be a lot better. These 12 or 14 hour days of nonstop "sessions" about "logistics" that require me to "Lean In" are draining my energy and making me feel pretty negative. Which is a problem when you're part of an organization that guilt trips you for expressing any type of dissatisfaction and encourages everyone to put on their Happy Face at all times. So yeah, for anyone who was wondering, I am definitely not drinking their Kool Aid right now and I'm just trying to get through these four weeks, which are the last obstacle to me being in my school, in my classroom, preparing for the fall.

It is definitely a roller coaster. I am either always having a period of extreme positivism, where I am overjoyed to be in TFA and working towards a goal I really care about, or I'm in a deep funk about the way institute is going, which then extends to everything else: TFA overall, the teaching profession, Mississippi. Everything. It is not easy to admit that this is where I am right now, but I promised honesty about my experiences this summer.

I am tired, I am grumpy. I don't eat enough (today I had peanut butter crackers and some mozzarella sticks), and I don't even know what a full night's sleep feels like anymore. All that said, I could not be more excited to welcome my students to Room 17 on Monday morning.

I have three amazing co-teachers who will be working with our group of students, and we've spent the last two days talking out our classroom management plan and setting up the room. We are all really focused on the KIDS during this summer, and understand that we are there to teach them, not the other way around (I have a serious problem with the mentality that these summer students are like, lab rats that we're supposed to practice teaching on all summer). I am really excited about all the good work we're going to be doing with our kids, and that's what's helping me focus right now. That's what it's all about.

I came home for the weekend, and this will be my last weekend at home for the summer. I had some items I needed to pick up for my classroom, and Don and I are celebrating an anniversary this Sunday. Sometime this week, I'll try to take pictures of our classroom and update on how it's going! I'm sure I will have tons of good news and write some more glowing blog posts after I get my students!

-Love, Linds

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

The first day of institute is officially over, and I am pooped. You would think that after going for days in a row without sleeping and spending twelve hours a day debating at nationals, I might know what real exhaustion feels like, but I am much more exhausted going through induction and institute than I've ever been in my life. This requires a very high level of energy, and that can be hard to maintain for the entire day.

Coming out of day one, I have some rants and raves, so I've decided to start with the positive first before venting about a few of the problems I'm currently experiencing here. As much as TFA sometimes encourages us to always keep our happy faces on, I've promised myself that I will be totally candid when blogging about my personal experiences here (my filter comes back into play only when discussing what goes on in my classroom and my students, who will always be anonymous). 

The Good

Don and I had an AWESOME Saturday here in Mississippi. We are both history buffs, and I am of course interested particularly in the Native American influences on this region, so we traveled to Greenville on Saturday to tour the Winterville Mound Site. This incredible site boasts of the second tallest Indian mound in the nation, and it was incredible to see in person. We have visited mounds all over Tennessee, Georgia, and North Carolina, but Winterville was one of the neatest places to visit. 

You probably can't tell just from this picture, but it's five stories tall!

The stairs to the top were closed for repair, but hey, we're rebels and climbed up anyway.

The view from the top across the flat land of the Delta was so incredible. 

While touring the mounds, we met a lovely couple from the Leland area who struck up a conversation with us after they heard us tell the museum curator that we're from Nashville. I explained that I'm doing TFA, and they spent about fifteen minutes talking about their experiences growing up here as lifelong Mississippians. I could tell they were a little bit anxious about how outsiders perceive the state as they assured me that the Delta is full of good people and fun things to do. It was so nice to meet people with so much pride in their community- of course, they told us that Friday night football and school rivalries will be super fun here in the fall! They also suggested that we visit Warfield Point Park, where there is a big viewing tower to look over the Mississippi River. Since I haven't seen the Mississippi since traveling to Oklahoma back in high school with my grandparents, we decided to check it out. 

On the way over, we stopped at the most adorable riverboat museum. The thing that I LOVE about Mississippi is that there is always a hole-in-the-wall museum or another adventure waiting around the corner. We ended our Saturday by driving over to Arkansas, just to say we did, and having dinner and a movie. Sadly, the theater in Greenville is the only one within like a hundred miles, so I will definitely be taking advantage of that whenever I'm there! 

On Sunday, I had to register for institute, and finally got my summer placement! I'll be teaching 10th and 11th grade English at East Side High for the summer! I was so excited that I went over immediately and snapped some pictures of my new school home. 

This placement is definitely ideal for me, as I was so worried about having to teach a subject outside of my content area. My school location is also only ten minutes away from Delta State's campus, so I am one of the last buses to leave in the morning. This is incredibly lucky, because some of fellow corps members are being bused an hour away to teach every morning. No thank you! 

Today was my first day on campus, and my favorite part was meeting my principal. He is a former college football coach, and has an incredibly dynamic personality. It's good to know that I'll be working with many high-energy faculty and administrators this summer! 

One other positive thing since my last blog post is that I finally finished organizing my room the way I want it, and I have almost everything hung up on the walls. I was super lucky to get a dorm room to myself, so I pushed the twin beds together and am using one of the desks as an entertainment center. Plus, I have my own bathroom and double the storage! It is really a blessing since I'm so introverted at times, and I am really enjoying my space. 

The Bad

It turns out that professional development really sucks. I was quite literally bored to tears at times during the day. I came in this afternoon and immediately laid down in the floor to have a mini-cry. Not because I'm sad, but because the thought of  every day this week being like today feels really painful right now. I know that the TFA national staff has our best interests in mind and do their best to make everything interesting, but there's just some things you can't make interesting. It is a little bit frustrating for me because I already understand how to plan lessons and manage my classroom and do those sorts of things, so a lot of it feels like review. I am trying to stay open-minded about everything, but I was completely DONE by the end of today. I am excited to get into my classroom and start doing my own thing a little bit more independently. I am not about this life where I get read to out of a manual all day. Yuck! 

I'm also a little homesick for the conveniences that I enjoyed in Macon and the Franklin area. Here, there just a few restaurant options and not many chain restaurants that people are familiar with. Pretty much all of your shopping, from clothes to food to household goods, happens at Walmart. I died a little on the inside when I realized there's no Ross, which is one of my favorite places to shop. And I'm pretty sure the nearest Starbucks is in Memphis. I won't even go into detail there, it makes me feel anxiety. Like, really. I had no idea how much of a city girl I actually am until I made this move. 

The Delta is mostly flat farm land. No malls or Starbucks here!

My other little whiny tidbit is that the food here is not the greatest, especially for vegetarians. I have been eating out a lot, which tends to burn through money fast. Every corps member gets a free meal plan through Delta State's cafeteria, and some days are better than others. We pick up a bag lunch to eat at our school campus every morning, and while I had a great salad with edamame and beans last week, today was an icky tofu wrap. On the bright side, maybe I'll drop some weight after this whole experience. When Don leaves tomorrow, I won't be tempted to eat out as much, which brings me to...

The Ugly

Don has been nice enough to stay here all week and help me settle in, but tomorrow he definitely, absolutely has to leave. He is doing some work for his Dad's company over the summer, and I need to buckle down here and get focused before my students arrive. It makes me really sad to think about being so far apart, and with my car being really old, it can't make too many trips home over the summer. I know that with Don leaving, I'll be down here without my biggest supporter, my partner, and my right-hand-man, so that will be hard. The long distance is a sacrifice that's really no fun whatsoever, but it's one we have to make to let me be effective in one of the neediest communities in the nation. Don is so important to my work, and things would be a lot harder without him cheering me on, even if it has to be from afar. I am just so freaking ready to walk down that aisle next July, like seriously, five years of dating and two stints of long distance, enough is enough already. 

It's also like 95 degrees and 100% humidity here every day. I'm from the South, and I think this weather is gross. I'm going to be doing a lot of laundry because everyone here is sweating through their clothes in like five minutes flat. Maybe I should be used to it after Macon, where it's actually worse, but I was never really there in the summer. The weather is nasty. Like Dad says, it's air you can wear. 

The other big thing I'm struggling with right now is the community's reaction to Teach For America. I felt like I was prepared for some backlash coming into TFA, because I definitely understand the criticisms of the organization, but some community members really just have some wrong assumptions about who every TFA corps member is and what motivates us individually for being here. On the one hand, I feel like I have picked up my life and made some huge sacrifices to be in this place, so I would like to be given the benefit of the doubt, but I also understand that respect has to be earned. Overall, I'm excited to get into my school and start working more closely with the community.

At the end of the day, I think I'm doing a really good job for someone who's a pessimist at heart to find the positive in things and keep pushing through this experience. I'm working my arse off already, and this is one of the easiest weeks yet. It's a wild journey, but it's a good one. 

-Love, Linds

Down in the Delta

I can't believe my first week in Mississippi has nearly gone by! I've been feeling so many feels this week as I learn what it means to be a teacher in Mississippi.

Don and I started our journey on Tuesday morning with both of our cars packed completely down with all of my stuff! No matter the length of time that I'm staying in any given place, I like to nest, so I wanted all of my essentials in my dorm room here in Mississippi.

My drive from home in Thompson's Station is a little under five hours, so I have it really good compared to the people who drove here from Oregon and Maine! It's also a tad shorter than my drive to Mercer was, but it felt really long for me. After leaving Memphis, the entire rest of the trip is on a two-lane highway with very little "civilization" until you actually reach Delta State, here in Cleveland. 

I am actually really enjoying Cleveland, which reminds me a little bit of Columbia for my family back home. Dad and I agreed that it could probably only get better after living in Macon for four years, and that was such an accurate assessment. There were things I really loved about Macon (like readily available Indian, Thai, and Vietnamese food, which is not a thing here) but I definitely feel very safe and very at-home in Cleveland. I think I am more used to the size of this town, and it feels much more welcoming. 

I had one moment in Tunica when Don and I stopped for lunch in a gas station Subway where I freaked out a little bit and told him I wasn't sure that I could live here, Thankfully, that feeling disappeared as soon as I settled in, got my cell phone back into 3G instead of 1X (LTE is not a thing), and started meeting my fellow TFA corps members. 

People who know me know that I am kind of picky when it comes to who I can get along with well. I tend to be fairly judgmental of other people (something I'm working on), and it takes a long time for me to like someone. That's why I was so surprised that I am surrounded by people that I really LIKE here at TFA. Seriously. I have never in my life been in a situation where I'm around so many people I just really love to chat with and get to know. I think this is part of all working towards a common goal together, and hearing passion for the issues I care most about in other people's voices. The other corps members are incredible, and many, like me, have overcome a lot of challenges to be here. Everyone is also seriously brilliant- they aren't kidding when they say that TFA only accepts the best of the best, and the conversations with people have been great. It's also been kind of funny to watch non-Southerners experience the South for the first time, in all its mosquito, fire ant, humid, Bible banging, fried food glory. I have to really hand it to them. This transition was hard enough for me when I am basically staying in my cultural comfort zone, so I can't imagine dealing with all of the regular feelings on top of dealing with this massive culture shock. 

This week has been busy. Induction is designed to get corps members familiar with the unique issues in their region and begin introducing us to topics that we will expand on throughout summer institute (which starts Monday), such as culturally responsive teaching, and topics specific to our content areas. My day usually starts between 7 and 8, and ends sometime between 3:30 and 5:30. Dress is business casual every day, which I secretly love because I am obsessed with cute dress and cardigan combinations. 

I have realized over the course of the week that my teaching philosophy and TFA's generalized teaching philosophy are a match made in heaven. I have said for years that I think teachers are ultimately activists and forces for change, and that's exactly what TFA believes, too. They seek to create classrooms where students from all different backgrounds can feel valued and affirmed, and where they are given the tools they need to implement real change in their lives and communities. Every day has gotten me so EXCITED about this work I am doing. Seriously, I didn't know I could get more excited than I already was about being a teacher, but I am. I feel energized every day, and instead of dragging through the day like I did in college and other jobs, I look forward to the day and what I will be doing and learning. Don says that I'm a pessimist, and I say that I'm a realist, but either way, I can't remember the last time I felt so positive about doing something. It feels really, really good. 

Don has been so great about helping me with this whole move and staying here to support me through this week of induction. There have been so many highs and lows of emotions. The problems that we face here in Mississippi, especially in the Delta, are staggering. Add the emotional weight that I am always carrying with me due to the responsibility I feel to my students, to the fact that I am an introvert and begin to get really overwhelmed after spending all day in large groups, and I am usually coming home every day and getting into bed for about an hour to detox from the day and get ready to take my teacher/corps member hat off for the evening. I'm hoping I get better about maintaining my energy as the summer goes on, but Don has been so good about spending the whole day doing his own thing and then letting me nap when I get back in the evening even though I know he'd rather talk or go out on a date. He's a champion! 

Thankfully, we have gotten to do some fun things. We have been checking out the vegetarian food here since we're both vegetarians, and the options have been surprising. It's not nearly as dismal as I expected. Hey Joe's has two veggie sandwiches with Portobello mushroom bases, Mosquito Burrito can do veggie burritos and has the most amazing fresh salsa verde, and The Lost Pizza Co. has this great vegetarian pizza called The Happy Hippie. I also have a free meal plan to the cafeteria, but it's nice to have options to go out, and all of the restaurants are really cute and unique. Since it's a college town, Cleveland has a much cooler vibe than I was expecting. 

We also visited Dockery Farms and the crossroads where Robert Johnson sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for becoming a great Blues musician last night. It was really cool to experience that part of Mississippi's history. Since I am my daddy's daughter, I love blues music and there is always a band playing live somewhere here on the weekends. 

On Sunday, I find out where my summer placement will be! Please pray that I get a secondary English placement- they can technically place you outside of your content area for the summer if they need to due to logistics, and I'm totally terrified that I will be asked to teach math or chemistry or something. Honestly, I need prayers that I can generally be effective in this work as well, because the problems in education here are going to make it really difficult for any first year teacher to keep her wits. The people from other regions who will be joining us at our institute are also moving in tomorrow I believe, so things are about to get even crazier around here! Overall, I'm just so happy, and so thankful for all of you back home who are thinking about me and hoping everything goes well for me. Love and miss ya'll! 

-Love, Linds

Showcase, Graduation, and FAQ

The last three weeks have been a complete whirl-wind! Somehow in such a short time period, I've managed to organize my debate kids' showcase night, pack up my classroom, pack up my office, ask two of my dear friends to be bridesmaids (complete with cute, themed swag bags), throw a party, graduate, pack up my house in Macon, move home to my parents' for this interim time, get sick and get well, do all of my Teacher Clothes shopping, and tour a wedding venue. This is what my Granny meant about running yourself ragged.

Possibly my favorite part of all of this was our Showcase Celebration at my last school (which feels really weird to say, because I haven't totally accepted that I won't be back there in the fall). Showcase is an opportunity for the students to perform for an audience of their parents, teachers, family members and friends. They usually pick pieces that they have been competing with at tournaments during the year, and we also included two sample debate rounds. Since I am actually incredibly disorganized (for a teacher) I wasn't sure we could pull it off, but my debate girls did an amazing job!

I used Oglethorpe's free printing services to print some programs with a letter to the parents and faculty at my school on the back, and ordered a BIG sheet cake from Publix...which they subsequently misspelled "speech" on, but it worked out for the best since I was able to get my money back because of their mistake. #FreeCake #BrokeCollegeStudentProblems

It still tasted good.

We drove from Atlanta to Tifton on Monday morning and stopped in Macon for the cake. That drive is a bear, about three hours total. Georgia is a really long state. We ran through a quick dress rehearsal, where everyone was prepared and there were zero hiccups whatsoever.

HAHA. Not. Dress rehearsal was complete with rowdy seniors next door raising all hell, and one student with chronic anxiety having multiple minor panic attacks. This is the stuff I live for as a teacher. Not that I enjoy students suffering from things like stage fright and anxiety, but because the students who come to me with these issues are some of my favorites (teachers do have favorites, you know). I love watching these kids blossom, because while it is always nice to get a star debater, straight-A honor roll kid in your class or on your team, nothing beats watching a child who never believed in her own potential surprise herself in front of an audience of forty or fifty adults. The expression on their faces is priceless when that happens. Those are my favorite moments. 

So I spent all afternoon rehearsing with this student and sat in the front row with my fingers crossed as she delivered her speech with flying colors. All my girls did an incredible job, and their parents and my administrators were super impressed with their work. It made me so proud of my kids, and really proud of my work. Even though we did not have a totally stellar season this year, showcase really highlighted for me how far everyone has come. 

Then I got to spend a good half of the car ride back to Macon sobbing my eyes out over leaving. This work breaks you in the best way possible, because you're really sending a little piece of your heart out with each student you've had in the past. I am not a sappy person, or even a very maternally-minded person, but I do love my students, would do pretty much anything to ensure their safety, happiness, and success, so it definitely hurts to leave. 

My lovely debate ladies after showcase. So smart, and so talented! 

Before I knew it, it was time for graduation, which definitely felt surreal. My parents came on Friday morning for baccalaureate, and I decorated my cap Saturday morning for graduation. I decided on a tribute to my Granny, who passed away this semester, and played a big role in my development as a student and teacher. She encouraged me from a really young age to pursue college, and I know she would have been so proud to see me walk across that stage. She was a teacher for several years as a young woman, and a lifelong teacher of her children and grandchildren. 

I used pieces from one of her Scrabble games to spell out a special message tribute for her, and wrote "Teach Truth" along the sides, which is a play on my debate mantra, which is "Speak Truth." I am so happy with how it turned out! 

Getting to celebrate with my family was wonderful, and having my degree in my hand felt so amazing! I have worked really hard to pay my way through college and try to minimize my student loan debt, so it was a huge relief to finally be done. Even though being a college graduate is just expected in a lot of families or areas of the country, I don't think that is necessarily an expectation around here. Thankfully, my parents and grandparents have really pushed me to do this and helped me along the way as much as possible, and I'm so grateful for them. 

Now that I've been home for about a week, I've been out shopping for lots of business casual and business profesh clothes, and I finally got signed up to take my English Praxis, which I have to pass in June to be certified. I've gone through my personal library at home to pull books for my classroom library, as well as doing some thrift store book shopping. I spent a good three hours yesterday taping the edges and spines of all my paperbacks with clear packing tape to make them last longer. I leave exactly a week from today, and I am a little freaked out about it! A lot of it is just stress about everything I need to organize and do before I leave, and obviously I am dreading being away from my fiance, Don, but it's just another speed hump we have to get over before we FINALLY get to meet each other in that chapel next summer. 

So many people have been positive about my upcoming experience in Mississippi. Everyone from my amazing high school debate coach, Ms. Z, to my future inlaws have been so encouraging and uplifting during this transition. My family members and friends have given me some incredibly generous graduation gifts to help financially with my move, as well as beautiful cookbooks (you know, so I can actually be a vegetarian and survive in the rural South), supplies for my classroom, and teacher swag. Seeing how excited most people around me are makes me really excited, too! During moments of weakness or doubt, I know I'll think back to all this love I've been feeling this summer and feel confident in my abilities thanks to everyone who's cheering me on. I love ya'll. 

There have also been a couple of haters, which is par for the course when you're as successful and fabulous as I am (just saying). 

It has been really interesting to hear people's inherently racist attitudes come out during this whole process. I have actually had someone ask me if most of my students are going to be "special ed." Sorry, predominantly poor, predominantly African American students do not equate to "special ed." I've had people ask questions about whether or not I fear for my safety. Really? Come on. 

I am also starting to experience those awesome situations all my education professors warned me about, where people who have zero experience teaching suddenly become experts when they find out you're going to be a teacher. Especially a Teach For America teacher. Especially a Teach For America teacher in Mississippi. 

So for the curious and the self-acknowledged experts, here's a quick FAQ:

(1) Are you crazy? 

Disregarding the fact that you are probably using the word "crazy" in a really disrespectful and inaccurate way, the answer is no, I am not crazy. I am actually a grown up who has weighed the pros and cons of this decision very carefully, and decided that this is the best fit for me right now. Thank you for your concern about my sanity.

(2) What's your salary like?

Disregarding the fact that you are super rude, my salary will be between $30,000-$35,000 annually. Cut the crap, if I was in it for the money, I'd be in a different career. 

(3) What's your fiance going to do?

Probably like, go to his classes and do the extracurriculars that he does? But since the real question you're asking is "Does Don support your decision," the answer is yes, wholeheartedly. Disregarding that your question is nosy, rude, and sexist, he has been wonderful about everything and we are not intimidated by the distance. Not saying it will be fun, but when you've been together as long as we have, you should realize that distance means so little when someone means so much. 

(4) Are your kids going to be stupid/bad/other negative words?

The majority of my students have committed one crime in society's eyes, and that was to be born into abject poverty. Does that answer your question? And while we're at it, let's get another thing straight: nobody talks bad about my kids or my community without going on my crap list forever. For all intensive purposes, just start considering me a proud Mississippian. 

(5) Why in the world would you want to leave your family/Williamson County/Tennessee?

Because I have a purpose in this world, and some God-given talents with which to fulfill that purpose, and right now I have a role to fill in Mississippi. 

Any more questions?

-Love, Linds

Thoughts About Leaving a Private School for TFA

I feel like this will be a recurring theme in my posts between now and June 2.

Things are going super good where I currently work, coaching debate. I got three new students today who want to join the team, and the energy level is high as we prepare for our parent showcase night later this semester. I'm not having any more attendance problems at practice, and my girls are doing a great job planning the menu for showcase. I'm trying to finish out the semester strong, because in the back of my mind, I know every practice is one closer to our last.

This debate program at my school is kind of like my baby. I built it from the ground up with the help of some special and dedicated students, and for being in its second year, I think it's a fine program. Passing it off to someone else will be one of the harder things I've had to do.

The thing is that I love my job, and I love my kids to distraction. Seriously, I scoffed at the kind of the unconditional love I had only seen in sappy teacher movies until I started coaching this team. I would do anything to ensure my students' success and well-being, and watching them bloom into confident, intelligent young people makes my heart just about burst with pride. I have a supportive group of administrators and parents, and a great classroom space.

The reason I can't stay is this: I think every child deserves the same opportunities that my kids enjoy.

I am so happy that most of my kids can go to sleep every night and wake up every morning in security. I'm so happy that very few of them want for anything. It is a relief to know that each of my students are college-bound, if that's what they choose. I'm glad the vast, vast majority of my students have never been victims of racism or poverty. My students are blessed, and I'm blessed to have spent the past two years coaching them. Mostly because I know any teacher or debate educator would love to be in my shoes, working in a private academy where funding is a nonissue and when you ask parents to jump, they say "how high?"

I feel confident that, as close as I've grown to my debaters and as much as I feel uniquely responsible for their speech and debate educations, another excellent coach and educator can, and will, pick up right where I left off. Teaching in a school like mine is a dream, but I don't know if it's mine.

Mississippi is experiencing a massive teacher shortage right now. There's more teachers moving out than coming in. Where there's a dozen others right behind me at my current school, I feel like Mississippi is a place where I can put my talents to work in a meaningful way.

I probably can't single-handedly dismantle poverty and systemic racism, but I can make my classroom a safe space for the students who face these on a daily basis. I can't follow my kids home and make sure they're safe, warm, and have enough to eat, but I can surround them in support and positivity for the fifty minutes I see them five days a week. At the very least, I know for sure that wherever I go, a damn good debate program will follow.

Maybe I'm crazy for leaving my comfortable job, but it feels good. This decision feels exhilarating and completely right.

I will always be grateful to my current students, their parents, my office support staff, and my administrators for showing me what education needs to look like for every child. Maybe one day I will end up back in a private school. Burn-out statistics don't just apply to teachers who leave the profession entirely. There's a whole other set of statistics for teachers who can't make it in Title I schools. I read a scary blog post just this morning from a teacher whose health has been in a downward spiral because of the stress levels she suffers on a daily basis. It's not easy, what we're tasked with, but it's worth it.

-Love, Linds

About Fear

So far, my emotions are ranging from feeling totally ecstatic, totally confident, about my decision to total panic about the enormity of what I'm about to do. Don't get me wrong- there is no chance whatsoever that I decide not to take the opportunity. Even in my moments of greatest fear, I feel completely sure that this is what I'm supposed to do. But that doesn't mean I'm not laying awake nights already with these terrifying thoughts running through my head.

"What if I'm not good at this?"

"What if they hate me?"

"What if I can't handle the pressure?"

"What if I can't make friends?"

"What if I hate my new town?"

"What if I fail? What if my students fail?"

"What if I get burnt out? What if I discover teaching isn't for me?"

And worst of all:

"What if I'm not cut from the right brand of duct tape to teach in a high-poverty, low-success school?"

Part of me then goes on to freak out about the fact that I'm even asking these questions. Surely it's a bad sign if I'm already thinking these thoughts and summer training hasn't even started?

I just remind myself that it is probably good that I understand the challenges on some level, and understand that this is going to be the hardest thing I've ever done. I'm glad that I can recognize my weaknesses and feelings of being under-prepared so that I can work to strengthen myself before the first day of class in the fall.

Yesterday evening, I got to talk with my staff contact about some of my apprehensiveness. Ms. Deborah was so helpful in answering my questions, and making me feel welcome in the corp and in Mississippi. She sounded so excited to have me in her region that I couldn't help but feel excited, too.

I think part of my feelings stem from making this move into totally uncharted territory where I won't have the ready support of my fiance, my parents, or my friends. A large part also stems from the fact that Mississippi is probably the worst state for education in the country. Reading the statistics made me realize that I truly am being placed on the frontlines of this fight for education inequity.

Only 61 percent of Mississippi's high school students graduate on time, and up to thirty percent are dropping out in high school before reaching graduation. That's ten points behind the national average. Mississippi is ranked 50th on six of the ten national indicators for child well-being. The Department of Justice has identified Mississippi public schools as a schools-to-prison pipeline. This is what we're up against.

Reading these statistics have made me pretty defensive of my placement, and it's only been a few days. Yes, I know Mississippi is considered a crappy place to live by the rest of the country. Yes, I know I'm moving to a place that is stereotyped as a bastion of racism and poverty. Yes, I know it might not be fun, thanks. If I wanted to have fun, I'd do something easy.

Ultimately, I can stay excited about my placement and about the fact that I am actually going to move to Mississippi (Lord help me) because my kids need me, and I think teachers need to practice what they preach. If I really want to go to war for my students, and do battle for their success on a daily basis, I am in the right place. I am slowly re-framing what was initially a not-so-pleasant surprise into the blessing that I know in my heart it is. I am so proud to begin serving Mississippi's students, and even though I have some fears, I'm ready to shove them aside and get to work.

-Love, Linds

Welcome :)

Hi readers! If you're here, you are probably a family member or friend, so thank you for taking the time to stop by! If you're new, you probably want to know a little bit about me and why on earth I've chosen teaching as my profession. So first things first, I'm Lindsey, I'm 22, and I want to be a high school teacher.

That's me!

I come from a pretty small town in Williamson County, Tennessee, and am about to graduate from Mercer University, which is in Macon, Georgia. I came in as a history major on the pre-law track, but quickly figured out that law was not going to be a thing for me. I would never be happy sitting behind a desk all day! 

During my first semester at Mercer, a local high school asked me to come run a debate workshop for them. I debated for four years before college, and also debate for Mercer, so I figured I would do it to make a little money and maybe get some kids excited about debate. In the middle of this workshop I was leading, a realization hit me like a freight train: I was having more FUN teaching these kids how to debate than I had in a long time. I started considering teaching, and took a few education classes at Mercer. I switched to an English major with secondary certification, and the rest is history. 

Mercer's Tift College of Education is an amazing, demanding program. Getting my certification was going to add another 33 hours, the equivalent of a second major, to my courseload and I didn't decide for sure that I wanted to teach until my sophomore year. Throw in weekly practices and monthly travel for my debate team, there was no way I would be able to fulfill the requirements for my secondary certification and stay on the team. I dropped my certification down to a minor in Teacher Education, and told myself I would go to a graduate program that attaches certification after Mercer. Thankfully, my debate team helped prepare me to teach in the communities I want to serve in a way that I don't think many classes or textbooks would have (more on that later). 

Hi, Team! 

During my junior year at Mercer, an amazing opportunity came up for me to coach my own high school debate team. No more running workshops and tagging pathetically along with other coaches' teams- I was going to get to coach my own! I went to work for Tiftarea Academy, a small private school, coaching some incredible kids...and driving an hour and a half one way to their school once a week. Despite the distance, we've had a successful two years and my kids have taught me so much about being a teacher. They are fabulous. 

The airbrushed t-shirts are super fly.

The summer after my first year coaching, another great opportunity landed right in my lap. I was asked to direct a division of Samford University's Summer Debate Institute. This one-week camp for high school debaters was the only time I questioned for a second whether or not teaching was for me. I had over a dozen debaters in my division, most of them first-time debaters who had never seen a round. I went from coaching the nearly all-girl team I was used to at Tiftarea to teaching a camp that was almost all-boys. It was a totally different dynamic to manage, and I spent Day 3 of this camp wanting to pull out my hair and burst into tears. But we made it through, dealt with one medical emergency (scariest moment of my life), and put on a great tournament at the end of the camp. It ended up being one of the best experiences of my life, and definitely helped prepare me to teach in a way I didn't expect. I love keeping up with my "summer kids" now and following all of their successes. 

Ended up loving each and every one of these special kids. You guys rock!

Enter my senior year of college, and I'm frantically applying for graduate programs. As I'm spending hundreds of dollars on exams and application fees, I still have this sinking feeling in my stomach that maybe going straight into graduate school is not what I want to do. But without my teaching certification, I could end up working in Starbucks. 

I remembered my debate coaches telling me about Teach For America, and I had seen some posters up around my university's campus. At the very last minute, for the very last deadline, I decided to apply for the program. Teach For America is an organization that recruits people, mostly recent college graduates, to teach in underprivileged schools throughout the U.S. Though I would be happy teaching anywhere, I have always wanted to go into the school communities that are the neediest. This is not because I'm under the impression that I am uniquely qualified to do this (in fact, I'm terrified about having this responsibility, but more on that later) but because I feel that I can do this type of work with a smile on my face every day. For me, teaching is a form of social activism, and a career one should go into with the mindset of shaking things up and breaking down the systems of oppression that push some children forwards while shoving other children down. Reading Teach For America's mission statement, I felt that the organization was a perfect fit for me. I'm aware of the criticisms of Teach For America. I'm aware that five weeks of summer training do not an extraordinary teacher make. But unlike many of their applicants, I want to be a career teacher. This is not a detour off my chosen path for me, but something I want to do for the rest of my life. 

Ok, so that's enough of the disclaimer statement. I went in for my final interview for Teach For America. It was super nerve-wracking, because you have to teach a five-minute lesson in front of your interviewers AND the other applicants. I was up nearly all night preparing a glorious lesson on literary themes to teach, but I ended up scrapping this once I got there and teaching something debate-related. This was a good decision. Lesson #1: Stick to the stuff you know. 

The interview experience was actually fantastic. I loved meeting the other applicants and learning why they wanted to be teachers. 

My interview group was so fun, and really got me fired up to be a teacher.

After the final interview, it was a lot of hurry-up-and-wait. Yesterday, I checked my e-mail about a thousand times and reloaded my online applicant status about three thousand times until I finally got my answer:

I was sitting at my desk at work when I got this message. Burst into tears, because that's how worried I was that I wouldn't get it!

Mississippi was not one of my top choices. In fact, it was one of my last choices. But I have been praying about this for months, and had all my family praying, too. I firmly believe that God has a special purpose for my life, and if I need to go to Mississippi, I'll go to Mississippi. I have a lot of fears. I'm worried about the fact that there won't be any Indian restaurants in rural Mississippi. I'm worried about leaving all my friends here in Georgia and moving somewhere where literally, the nearest friend or family member I have is 4.5 hours away. I'm sad about entering another year of long distance with my fiance, who lives in Atlanta. We've done it before for a year, but it was not fun by any means. I'm worried about how I'm going to pay for this move and support myself with a teacher salary on my own two feet. But underneath all these fears is the conviction that this is right for me; that this is what I was meant to do; that Mississippi, for whatever reason, is going to be a great fit. I can't wait to start this journey, and meet all my kids! 

I hope that this blog can be a space where I vent, share the things I'm learning, and brag about my kids. Though I haven't met them yet, and actually have no idea whatsoever what school, or even what city, I'll be placed in, I have no doubt that my kids are the best kids in the world. Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more about my region and how you can help me on this journey (I will definitely be asking you for $$$). 

-Love, Linds