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