Newest Adventure: Teach for America!

The last I used this blog, I was finishing my semester abroad in Germany in July 2007. A great many developments have affected the course of my life since then, but since my readers are very familiar with them, I will not articulate them here. And besides, that is too much self-reflection to do on a sunny Saturday. So, enjoy my latest update in my Teach for America (hereafter TFA) adventures!

I arrived in the Delta during a freakish cold snap, which definitely gives the casual observer the wrong impression of what Delta summers are really like. I experienced a couple days of long and wordy indoctrination sessions and interviewed with two elementary principals. I suppose it was important to acquaint the new corps members with the TFA vision and to create a unity of purpose, but a lot of it was just eye roll-worthy (which I did, internally, on many, many occasions). It did help, however, that I got to meet my fellow newbies, who are generally incredibly nice, brilliant, and fun. We may number almost 300, but the sense of community is immediately apparent. This will be one of my favorite aspects, I can already tell.

I made it to Houston Sunday evening amidst a whirlwind of chaos as 832 TFA corps members from the Delta, Dallas, Houston, Memphis, Rio Grande Valley, and Hawaii regions scrambled to get themselves moved into Moody Towers at the University of Houston. We started bright and early Monday morning, and I spent the week getting the biggest crash course of my life in the world of teaching theory and practice. Some of it was helpful, some intimidating, and some, sad to say, made what skills I thought I already intuitively possessed seem inadequate and misinformed--even though I am not convinced that this should be the case. TFA prides itself on building teachers from the ground up (using the slogan, "teachers are made, not born"), which has been a source of discomfort for the few education majors among us. But hopefully, when I get into the classroom for the first time on Monday, the pieces will finally settled into their appropriate places.

I work with two other corps members to teach a 3rd grade summer school class at Wainwright Elementary in Houston, and I will be starting out teaching science! This is hugely intimidating to me, since science was never my strongest subject--in fact, my weakest by far--but I am doing my best to just roll with it. My objective is to teach the scientific method and to lead a class experiment! This has two possible outcomes, as far as I can see: 1.) make me the coolest and favorite teacher of the three, or 2.) make my first week into out-of-control chaos. Since I am well-aware of these possibilities, I am planning very, very, VERY carefully. :)

I have met many great people, and I am having a pretty good time. If I could change one thing, though, I would like to get a bit more sleep... But I do have to say, 5am every morning feels too early no matter how much sleep I managed to get! Anyway, I will try to send an email update/blog post every weekend during Institute to keep you all informed of my progress. Wish me luck, and have a great weekend!!