Not gonna lie friends...yesterday was an AWESOME day.
Which is only slightly ironic, as exactly a week before that (last Wednesday, to be precise) I was hysterically crying not only to my sister over the phone, but also to my CMA (corps member adviser-- my direct supervisor and main support for the summer as I develop as a teacher) in our weekly meeting. In a nutshell, last Wednesday sucked. To avoid dwelling on unnecessary details, I was attempting to teach time to my second graders. Let me tell you, time is hard to teach in 45 minutes. Really hard. And things get really complicated when your second graders can't tell the difference between the hour and the minute hand. I couldn't even give my assessment to my kids on Wednesday. We didn't get through enough material and for the first time since coming to Atlanta, I really felt like I sucked at my job. It was not a good day.
But, thanks to a few wonderful people and lotsa support from some fellow corp members, I came out of Wednesday knowing that it could be better. And slowly, it did. I was still teaching hard concepts, but it was getting better.
And then, yesterday came.
Let me set the stage: my co-teacher and I decided kind of last minute (as in Monday) to co-teach the entire hour and a half instead of each teaching separate 45 minute segments. My objective for Wednesday was to teach subtraction word problems, and her's was to teach addition word problems. Instead of trying to break up both of these, we decided that it was better to group them together and focus on the difference in key words of word problems (ie "all together" and "in all" tell us that we need to add, while words like "how many more" and "how many left" tell us that we need to subtract).
Lemme tell you I have never in my LIFE seen kids so stinkin' excited about learning some key words and problem solving strategy skills. For reals. EVERY single one of my kids was paying attention, EXCITED to answer questions, and completely engaged throughout the ENTIRE lesson!
Some of you may have seen the Facebook status or tweet from me declaring that I had "crossed the threshold" into passionate/joyful with my kids. The meaning from these statements comes from the Teaching As Leadership Impact Model. Teaching as leadership is TFA's theory as to how corps members can become transformational leaders and really make lasting and meaningful change in their classrooms. In a nutshell, it says that teacher mindsets and actions have a direct impact on student achievement. My effectiveness as a teacher is judged on how my students are acting in my class, which start at "unengaged and disinterested." By the time everyone leaves institute, your kids should be "interested and hard working."
But I swear, in a few moments throughout the lesson, my kids were beyond interested and hard working and truly became passionate and joyful learners! This was by far the best antidote I could have had for fixing a crappy week. And it's been motivating me over the last 24 hours to step up my lesson plans and bring my kids over to that passionate, joyful learning. Today, 100% of my kids mastered the objective that I was teaching. There is no better reward than that!
I feel like I've just tried crack for the first time, except that my drug of choice is student achievement and not controlled substances (that may or may not have been the most ridiculous thing I have ever said or written). But in all honesty, it's true. Institute is hard. Teaching is hard. But I've just had my first glimpse at what is possible with these kids. More importantly, I feel like I'm doing what I was made and created to do. There is nothing better than that!
Logistical updates: 9 DAYS LEFT PEOPLE. nine.days.left. Part of me is ready to run back to Ohio and leave everything about Georgia Tech behind, but another part is completely terrified knowing that with only 5 weeks of training I will be responsible for an entire classroom for an entire year! I leave here on the 9th and will be home probably until the 14th or 15th when I officially move to Tennessee, and Ohio will become "the place I grew up in" and no longer my home state (I haven't really processed all of that in my brain yet, which may or may not lead to some future late night phone calls from me. Consider this your warning!) :) I will dearly miss some of the friends I have made from the Greater New Orleans corps and the Atlanta Corps, but I am very much looking forward to getting back to Memphis and working with the TFA Memphis office for the next two years.
I received my official calendar from the principal of my new school! School starts August 22 (why yes, that IS the day after my birthday, how nice of you to remember!) and we get out on June 15th. That's 183 instructional days for students, 23 vacation days, and 5 days of PD with no kiddies. Not quite sure what to think about it yet. Most Memphis City Schools start August 8 and get out somewhere at the end of May. I don't think I will like being in school an extra 2 weeks while all of my friends are having fun without me!
I am going home this weekend for my Young Life leader's wedding which I am B.E.Y.O.N.D. excited for! Seeing her get married, celebrating with all of my friends AND getting a weekend away from institute are all things that make my heart happy!
Alright, I think that is enough updates and inspiration for you all. Thanks for all of you who tell me that you read this-- it really does make my day! Here's to 9 more days of closing the achievement gap for the time being and eating pre-made cafeteria food!
Love to all!
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Monday, June 13, 2011
Peace Up, A-Town Down!
Hello, friends!
If you are keeping up with me on either facebook and/or twitter you have no doubt found out that I have indeed arrived to Atlanta and have been happily (well...maybe not necessarily happily...) living and breathing Teach For America for the last week and a half. Life in the ATL is crazy. All 183 Memphis corps members are here, along with the 185 Greater New Orleans corps and the nearly 300 Metro Atlanta TFA people too. For those of you keeping track, that's nearly 700 of the approximately 5,000 2011 corps members living here at Georgia Tech learning how to teach effectively and become transformational leaders!
If I could use one word to describe my days here at institute it would be...LONG. For reals. Long days coupled with hard work lead to a very sleepy Lizabelle at the end of every day! Here is a quick glimpse for those of you interested in what a "day in the life" of an incoming corps member looks like...
5:30am- My alarm goes off. I refrain from yelling expletives about the fact that I am awake before the sun is up. I hit snooze. Usually twice.
6:15am- I leave my apartment. For how early we have to get up every day, it certainly does help that everything that I need, especially in the early morning, is no farther than a 5 minute walk away from my apartment. I leave my 8th Street West apartment at 6:15 and arrive to the dining hall by 6:20am.
6:20am- I stand in line and fill up my lunch box (courtesy of Georgia Tech dining services) of my boxed lunch for the day: ham and cheese sandwich, sunchips, banana, oatmeal raisin cookie, and a coke. I get to the end of the line and stuff a few napkins in the side pocket, and then go into the main cafeteria to eat my breakfast *sidenote: one of the reasons I absolutely LOVE working with TFA is of how efficient they are. They are constantly trying to improve their systems of operations, even if what they are doing is already working! I seriously never have to wait more than 2 minutes to get my lunch in the morning. In the name of 700 corps members, that is pretty darn impressive.
6:25m- I arrive in the cafeteria and find my friend Elizabeth to sit with. I usually eat a bowl of cereal, fruit and get a cup of coffee to go. I leave the cafeteria at 6:38 (TFA has clocks on the large screen TV in the dining hall, with a countdown to when your assigned but will leave. Mine leaves at 6:45am).
6:40am- I am on the bus to go to Bethune Elementary School! It is absolutely IMPERATIVE that I make it on the bus before 6:45. Any corps member who is not on the bus at their assigned time must pay for and take a cab to their assigned school *second sidenote: I have had the high privilege of watching corps members R.U.N. to the bus every morning because they were going to be late. It's HIGHLY entertaining. And thus serves as my motivation to get up at the ungodly hour of 5:30 every morning.
6:45am- Bus leaves for Bethune. I put my iPod in for the 15 minute drive and use this time to collect myself and intentionally do not socialize with anyone. Bus time = me time.
7am- We arrive at Bethune. Last week we sat in various sessions about curriculum, literacy, diversity, lesson planning, etc. for 9 hours every day. However, since we are now officially teaching, we have prep time from 7-7:30. Kids start arriving at 7:30
7:30-8am The kiddies come! Everyone is down in the cafeteria for breakfast. Today we basically just hung out with our students and started to build relationships with them *sidenote number three: my kids called me a vampire today because they thought my eyes were so green. Compliment?
8-8:45 Academic Intervention Hour. Today it was just us explaining the rules, but normally this will be some kind of academic tutoring time.
8:50-10:20 My co-lab (read: partner) and I leave our kiddies in the trusting hands of our reading teacher counter parts. We attend various professional development sessions. Today was about planning effective methods for our lesson plans.
10:30- teaching time! My partner and I each teach 45 minutes of math every day. My schedule is a little wonky since all the 2nd graders go to lunch from 11-11:30. So my teaching schedule is technically teach from 10:30-11, lunch from 11-11:30, and finish my lesson from 11:30-11:45. Not exactly convenient, but it is what it is.
11:45-12:30 My partner teaches the next objective in math while I observe. Today, the second I sat down quickly drained A.L.L. energy I had from my body after I felt I could finally relax after getting my first lesson out of the way.
12:30- kiddies leave, we eat lunch. Finally.
1pm-4:30pm: other various professional development workshops and work time for our groups and classrooms. This time can vary between literacy sessions, lesson planning clinics, CMA (corps member advisor) group time, or planning and grading for tomorrow's lesson. Work time with our CMA and all of our co-lab is really invaluable, especially when we are in the building and have access to a lot of excellent resources.
4:30- Busses leave Bethune. We arrive back on campus usually 15 or so minutes later back at Georgia Tech and I change into sweats and/or jeans and a t-shirt as quickly as humanly possible *sidenote cuatro: because today was our first day of teaching, we were greeted and cheered off the bus by all of the interns that are working here in ATL for the summer with freeze pops and our 2011 corps t-shirts! It was very a la Young Life camp welcoming committee. Made me happy.
5pm- Dinner(ish) time...sometimes I eat closer to 5:30 of 6, depending on who is free and how much I have to do that night. I usually end up eating with my friend Elizabeth or Tammie, but I never worry about going alone to eat because I know that I will at least see 1 other Memphian eating there at the same time. Its inevitable.
5:45- dinner is over, and the work begins! Sometimes (like tonight!) I am able to be SUPER productive and can finish in anywhere from 3-4 hours. Sometimes I am not productive and I end up going to bed at my limit (midnight) without all my work being done. It just depends. But now that I am getting into the swing of things and understand more and more each day what is expected of me, its getting easier for me to estimate how much time my work will take me every day. For the past couple days I've parked myself at the resource room, which is, as I've told many of my friends here and anyone else who is associated with TFA that it is simultaneously like crack-cocaine to a teacher and God's gift to institute. It is basically a room with every manipulative, worksheet, idea, and supply that you could think of. And 4-5 staff people ready and willing to help you find something whenever you need it. You can make free copies of worksheets and check out manipulatives for 3 days at a time. I'm sure while I'm at institute it will be as close to heaven as I can get :)
Whenever I finish working- I leave the resource room and head to bed! Sometimes I stop at the copy center to print and run things off. I'm getting pretty savvy at navigating our copy machines and can now make double sided copies like a pro!
Sometime after finishing all of that I go home, shower, and fall into my bed.
Like I said, life here is a little cray-cray. But I'm learning a TON about teaching and a TON about the organization. Which I love. I know that my time here is not wasted and will only help me when I get to the classroom in the fall.
Just so you know I L.O.V.E. encouraging text messages, emails, facebooks, tweets, snail mail...anything! If I don't respond to everything it is only because I am probably running around somewhere in Atlanta trying not to miss my 6:45 but or using behavioral narration to manage my classroom! But I love and appreciate every one of you! The work is long and hard, but it is good and worth it. I keep hangin' in there, taking it one day at a time :)
If you are keeping up with me on either facebook and/or twitter you have no doubt found out that I have indeed arrived to Atlanta and have been happily (well...maybe not necessarily happily...) living and breathing Teach For America for the last week and a half. Life in the ATL is crazy. All 183 Memphis corps members are here, along with the 185 Greater New Orleans corps and the nearly 300 Metro Atlanta TFA people too. For those of you keeping track, that's nearly 700 of the approximately 5,000 2011 corps members living here at Georgia Tech learning how to teach effectively and become transformational leaders!
If I could use one word to describe my days here at institute it would be...LONG. For reals. Long days coupled with hard work lead to a very sleepy Lizabelle at the end of every day! Here is a quick glimpse for those of you interested in what a "day in the life" of an incoming corps member looks like...
5:30am- My alarm goes off. I refrain from yelling expletives about the fact that I am awake before the sun is up. I hit snooze. Usually twice.
6:15am- I leave my apartment. For how early we have to get up every day, it certainly does help that everything that I need, especially in the early morning, is no farther than a 5 minute walk away from my apartment. I leave my 8th Street West apartment at 6:15 and arrive to the dining hall by 6:20am.
6:20am- I stand in line and fill up my lunch box (courtesy of Georgia Tech dining services) of my boxed lunch for the day: ham and cheese sandwich, sunchips, banana, oatmeal raisin cookie, and a coke. I get to the end of the line and stuff a few napkins in the side pocket, and then go into the main cafeteria to eat my breakfast *sidenote: one of the reasons I absolutely LOVE working with TFA is of how efficient they are. They are constantly trying to improve their systems of operations, even if what they are doing is already working! I seriously never have to wait more than 2 minutes to get my lunch in the morning. In the name of 700 corps members, that is pretty darn impressive.
6:25m- I arrive in the cafeteria and find my friend Elizabeth to sit with. I usually eat a bowl of cereal, fruit and get a cup of coffee to go. I leave the cafeteria at 6:38 (TFA has clocks on the large screen TV in the dining hall, with a countdown to when your assigned but will leave. Mine leaves at 6:45am).
6:40am- I am on the bus to go to Bethune Elementary School! It is absolutely IMPERATIVE that I make it on the bus before 6:45. Any corps member who is not on the bus at their assigned time must pay for and take a cab to their assigned school *second sidenote: I have had the high privilege of watching corps members R.U.N. to the bus every morning because they were going to be late. It's HIGHLY entertaining. And thus serves as my motivation to get up at the ungodly hour of 5:30 every morning.
6:45am- Bus leaves for Bethune. I put my iPod in for the 15 minute drive and use this time to collect myself and intentionally do not socialize with anyone. Bus time = me time.
7am- We arrive at Bethune. Last week we sat in various sessions about curriculum, literacy, diversity, lesson planning, etc. for 9 hours every day. However, since we are now officially teaching, we have prep time from 7-7:30. Kids start arriving at 7:30
7:30-8am The kiddies come! Everyone is down in the cafeteria for breakfast. Today we basically just hung out with our students and started to build relationships with them *sidenote number three: my kids called me a vampire today because they thought my eyes were so green. Compliment?
8-8:45 Academic Intervention Hour. Today it was just us explaining the rules, but normally this will be some kind of academic tutoring time.
8:50-10:20 My co-lab (read: partner) and I leave our kiddies in the trusting hands of our reading teacher counter parts. We attend various professional development sessions. Today was about planning effective methods for our lesson plans.
10:30- teaching time! My partner and I each teach 45 minutes of math every day. My schedule is a little wonky since all the 2nd graders go to lunch from 11-11:30. So my teaching schedule is technically teach from 10:30-11, lunch from 11-11:30, and finish my lesson from 11:30-11:45. Not exactly convenient, but it is what it is.
11:45-12:30 My partner teaches the next objective in math while I observe. Today, the second I sat down quickly drained A.L.L. energy I had from my body after I felt I could finally relax after getting my first lesson out of the way.
12:30- kiddies leave, we eat lunch. Finally.
1pm-4:30pm: other various professional development workshops and work time for our groups and classrooms. This time can vary between literacy sessions, lesson planning clinics, CMA (corps member advisor) group time, or planning and grading for tomorrow's lesson. Work time with our CMA and all of our co-lab is really invaluable, especially when we are in the building and have access to a lot of excellent resources.
4:30- Busses leave Bethune. We arrive back on campus usually 15 or so minutes later back at Georgia Tech and I change into sweats and/or jeans and a t-shirt as quickly as humanly possible *sidenote cuatro: because today was our first day of teaching, we were greeted and cheered off the bus by all of the interns that are working here in ATL for the summer with freeze pops and our 2011 corps t-shirts! It was very a la Young Life camp welcoming committee. Made me happy.
5pm- Dinner(ish) time...sometimes I eat closer to 5:30 of 6, depending on who is free and how much I have to do that night. I usually end up eating with my friend Elizabeth or Tammie, but I never worry about going alone to eat because I know that I will at least see 1 other Memphian eating there at the same time. Its inevitable.
5:45- dinner is over, and the work begins! Sometimes (like tonight!) I am able to be SUPER productive and can finish in anywhere from 3-4 hours. Sometimes I am not productive and I end up going to bed at my limit (midnight) without all my work being done. It just depends. But now that I am getting into the swing of things and understand more and more each day what is expected of me, its getting easier for me to estimate how much time my work will take me every day. For the past couple days I've parked myself at the resource room, which is, as I've told many of my friends here and anyone else who is associated with TFA that it is simultaneously like crack-cocaine to a teacher and God's gift to institute. It is basically a room with every manipulative, worksheet, idea, and supply that you could think of. And 4-5 staff people ready and willing to help you find something whenever you need it. You can make free copies of worksheets and check out manipulatives for 3 days at a time. I'm sure while I'm at institute it will be as close to heaven as I can get :)
Whenever I finish working- I leave the resource room and head to bed! Sometimes I stop at the copy center to print and run things off. I'm getting pretty savvy at navigating our copy machines and can now make double sided copies like a pro!
Sometime after finishing all of that I go home, shower, and fall into my bed.
Like I said, life here is a little cray-cray. But I'm learning a TON about teaching and a TON about the organization. Which I love. I know that my time here is not wasted and will only help me when I get to the classroom in the fall.
Just so you know I L.O.V.E. encouraging text messages, emails, facebooks, tweets, snail mail...anything! If I don't respond to everything it is only because I am probably running around somewhere in Atlanta trying not to miss my 6:45 but or using behavioral narration to manage my classroom! But I love and appreciate every one of you! The work is long and hard, but it is good and worth it. I keep hangin' in there, taking it one day at a time :)
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Memphis Lives in Me
Oh my sweet Jesus, y'all are getting an update from me!
*side note: I promise that I haven't completely abandoned my midwestern roots and lost all sense of how to speak. But I have developed a *slight* fancy for the word "y'all" and am enjoying practicing my southern drawl where I won't get made fun of.
Well, some significant changes have occurred in my life since the last time I wrote an entry in my blog, the biggest of which is that I am now officially a daughter of Saint Louis University forever! Graduation weekend was SO.MUCH.FUN. OhMyWord I can't even explain it. My parents and sister rolled into town on Thursday, where we ate at one of my favorite Spanish/Italian restaurants and stayed in town all weekend for fun and festivities. I left SLU exactly the way I wanted to, with nothing but love in my heart for a place that has given SOsoSO much to me. I put this on one of my Facebook statuses, but it is worth saying again: my four years at SLU were some of the most life-changing years that I'm sure I will ever have in my life. To everyone who's played even a small part of it, please accept my deepest gratitude and heartfelt thanks :)
SO I came home from school and was at home for a week, which was a restful time and gave me some great opportunities to catch up with some of my best friends. It also meant that I had exactly 7 days to unpack everything (which didn't exactly happen...) and re-pack 2 suitcases so I could get ready for my next adventure: Teach For America! My family and I (minus my brother, sadly) flew down to Memphis on Saturday to begin looking at housing and begin to get situated with my new city. Honestly, I have never fallen in L.O.V.E. with a city so quickly. I don't know what it was, but something spoke to me about this town that immediately caused me to love it. I'm still learning a lot about its history and culture, and I have no doubt that my love will only continue to grow.
Monday officially started my first phase as a first year TFA corps member: induction. For those of you who don't know TFA has 3 main components to the summer before you start teaching, and the first phase is called induction. It is used to acclimate you to your region, introduce you to some regional (and sometimes national) staff, and, as my sister says, "start the brainwashing process." We learn about our core values, our impact in the classroom and as an alum, and get to know a LOT of people. We're now almost officially half way through induction, and so far I have met some amazing people that have done some I.N.C.R.E.D.I.B.L.E things for their kids in the classroom. I wish I had time to write about it all. Ask me the next time you see me, I know I will be able to talk your ear off!
One of the things I've been most inspired by since I've arrived in Memphis is the opportunities that are coming to this city in terms of public education reform. If you don't know, Tennessee was the recipient of the a national "Race to the Top" grant that awarded only 3 states something like $500 million to the 13 poorest and lowest performing schools in the state (8 of which currently are in Memphis). In addition, Memphis City Schools was also the recipient of an almost $100 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for education reform. This year, Memphis was able to accept 183 corps members into the 2011 corps. Coupled with the 2010 corps, one-fifth of the teachers within the Memphis City School District in the 2011-2012 academic year will be Teach For America teachers, and over the next five years we will impact over 100,000 students in the classroom. This is unbelievable and certainly not the norm in all TFA regions across the country!
Tonight we were able to tour the National Civil Rights Museum and see the balcony and room where Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated on April 4, 1968. I have a lot of thoughts and feelings coming out of tonight (which I will spare you from temporarily and save them for another post) :) but during our de-briefing sessions one of my friends said something that I think was so interesting and important to think about: in 1968, the United States was watching Memphis as an epicenter of civil rights reform and/or as a catalyst for change. Now, 40 some-odd years later, Memphis has more opportunity in its hands to be an epicenter for educational reform and a proof point for the country that all children have the ability to achieve. I am INCREDIBLY excited and unbelievably humbled to be a part of this movement.
This is the time. Memphis is the place.
*side note: I promise that I haven't completely abandoned my midwestern roots and lost all sense of how to speak. But I have developed a *slight* fancy for the word "y'all" and am enjoying practicing my southern drawl where I won't get made fun of.
Well, some significant changes have occurred in my life since the last time I wrote an entry in my blog, the biggest of which is that I am now officially a daughter of Saint Louis University forever! Graduation weekend was SO.MUCH.FUN. OhMyWord I can't even explain it. My parents and sister rolled into town on Thursday, where we ate at one of my favorite Spanish/Italian restaurants and stayed in town all weekend for fun and festivities. I left SLU exactly the way I wanted to, with nothing but love in my heart for a place that has given SOsoSO much to me. I put this on one of my Facebook statuses, but it is worth saying again: my four years at SLU were some of the most life-changing years that I'm sure I will ever have in my life. To everyone who's played even a small part of it, please accept my deepest gratitude and heartfelt thanks :)
SO I came home from school and was at home for a week, which was a restful time and gave me some great opportunities to catch up with some of my best friends. It also meant that I had exactly 7 days to unpack everything (which didn't exactly happen...) and re-pack 2 suitcases so I could get ready for my next adventure: Teach For America! My family and I (minus my brother, sadly) flew down to Memphis on Saturday to begin looking at housing and begin to get situated with my new city. Honestly, I have never fallen in L.O.V.E. with a city so quickly. I don't know what it was, but something spoke to me about this town that immediately caused me to love it. I'm still learning a lot about its history and culture, and I have no doubt that my love will only continue to grow.
Monday officially started my first phase as a first year TFA corps member: induction. For those of you who don't know TFA has 3 main components to the summer before you start teaching, and the first phase is called induction. It is used to acclimate you to your region, introduce you to some regional (and sometimes national) staff, and, as my sister says, "start the brainwashing process." We learn about our core values, our impact in the classroom and as an alum, and get to know a LOT of people. We're now almost officially half way through induction, and so far I have met some amazing people that have done some I.N.C.R.E.D.I.B.L.E things for their kids in the classroom. I wish I had time to write about it all. Ask me the next time you see me, I know I will be able to talk your ear off!
One of the things I've been most inspired by since I've arrived in Memphis is the opportunities that are coming to this city in terms of public education reform. If you don't know, Tennessee was the recipient of the a national "Race to the Top" grant that awarded only 3 states something like $500 million to the 13 poorest and lowest performing schools in the state (8 of which currently are in Memphis). In addition, Memphis City Schools was also the recipient of an almost $100 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for education reform. This year, Memphis was able to accept 183 corps members into the 2011 corps. Coupled with the 2010 corps, one-fifth of the teachers within the Memphis City School District in the 2011-2012 academic year will be Teach For America teachers, and over the next five years we will impact over 100,000 students in the classroom. This is unbelievable and certainly not the norm in all TFA regions across the country!
Tonight we were able to tour the National Civil Rights Museum and see the balcony and room where Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated on April 4, 1968. I have a lot of thoughts and feelings coming out of tonight (which I will spare you from temporarily and save them for another post) :) but during our de-briefing sessions one of my friends said something that I think was so interesting and important to think about: in 1968, the United States was watching Memphis as an epicenter of civil rights reform and/or as a catalyst for change. Now, 40 some-odd years later, Memphis has more opportunity in its hands to be an epicenter for educational reform and a proof point for the country that all children have the ability to achieve. I am INCREDIBLY excited and unbelievably humbled to be a part of this movement.
This is the time. Memphis is the place.
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