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