Throwing around desks

Friday August 4. 2006

After receiving my class list yesterday, I spent the afternoon loving my students' names...How many name combonations exist ending in '-neshia?' In my class, at least 5. I loved having a list of names to match to these 22 empty desks I've been moving around for the past week.
I've known that my kids would be behind, that they would be below grade level, and that this experience would be challenging. And today that all became very real very quickly. Yesterday I was dealt with a staggering statistic of 64%, and today I was handed a list of names. When other teachers at school glanced through my list I was given a lot of sympathetic looks, even the occasional sarcastic 'good luck.' Sounds like I've been dealt a tough hand. My TFA Program Director, and a former TFA teacher at my school, gave me the real skinny...it seems my principal likes to 'toughen up' the new teachers by giving them the toughest kids. So now I've got 5 students whose names all end in '-neshia' (and yes, that means their names all rhyme), all 4 of the 4th grade special education students, at least 4 students with behavior problems (including one that tends to throw desks when he's angry), and I'm sure tomorrow they'll add to my list a partridge in a pear tree.
It's time to put on my game face...I didn't spend six weeks in Houston getting trained for nothing. It might be a wild ride, but I'm starting to like the fact that my kids have some fire in 'em...

64%...

Wednesday August 2. 2006

This afternoon the teachers at my school had a meeting...Initially I assumed this meeting would be similar to the other orientation meetings we've been having all week. In theory it was, and I listened to more talking about school policies and student achievement while trying not to focus on all the other things I needed to be doing. That is until I was forced alert like a deer in headlights...64%...the percentage of mastery that my school's third graders achieved. My principal was announcing the test scores from the previous school year, and skimmed across this value as though it was little more than a comma. Yet to me, this value spells out a clear educational gap, a gap that I'm here to fill. Although math has never particularly been my strong suit, even I could gauge that this value was far from the 100% it should have totaled. It was somewhat staggering to have a statistical value placed upon these kids...and to simultaneously realize that I am responsible for their educational growth over the next school year. Such overwhelming thoughts were only temporary though...If anything, 64% now seems like a great number. This value clearly demonstrates that these kids are not at their full potential academically...and as long as I have anything to say about it, they're not going anywhere but up.

Ms. Clean?

Never did I imagine that I would be so intimate with cleaning supplies and paper towels...Although my bottle of Clorox Clean-Up is quickly feeling like a long lost friend. I've spent the past few days in and out of meetings, but mainly I've been on my hands and knees cleaning out my classroom. While it's true that the wonderful janitorial staff at my school spent a greater part of the summer months cleaning windows and waxing floors...God Bless 'em...I was given a classroom with the former occupants' belongings all being 'stored' there for the summer. Similar I would imagine to arriving to a newly leased apartment only to find that the former tenant hasn't exactly moved out yet...and has no intention of doing so anytime soon. I've been cleaning, scrubbing, and moving around boxes, until yesterday when the other teacher decided to shape up and ship out. Can we have a show of hands for the other occupations that require such manual labor prior to occupying one's new office? Teachers, I feel ya.
It's been a long week of meetings, cleaning, and work...But I'm here for a challenge, so I press on.

Let's Do This.

After receiving my acceptance letter from Teach For America last December, I was pretty pumped to start the challenge of teaching in a low income school district for at least two years. I was ready to "change our nation's educational inequity," and make an impact in the lives of children. And only recently (yes, nearly six months later) have I come to realize that 'challenge' might have been a little bigger than I anticipated...
For five weeks this summer, I was sweatin' it out in Houston, TX for the Teach For America Institute training program. In essence, TFA takes all of its accepted new Corps Members and prepares them, for life as a teacher in the trenches of some of our nation's poorest areas. Prior to arriving in Houston, this seemed like a fairly simple process. Six weeks later, I survived 'teacher boot camp.' I'll spare the gory details, and my rigorous daily schedule involving little free time and lots (and lots) of hard work. Being a teacher is hard work, and being a TFA teacher...Well, it makes things a little harder. During Institute, I taught summer school by day and by night sat through panels and information sessions...But it was worth it. At this point I can safely say that I feel prepared for this challenge...That is not to say that it will be any easier than originally intended.