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