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Monday, 13 July 2009

  • New, Scary, Grown-upness

    I'm opening a new bank account. 

    Teach for America has a special partnership with Wachovia, and we get their highest level checking and savings account for free.  And other stuff. Like a brand new state of the art stainless steel spoon accessory.  It's nice, right?

    And, I'm going ahead and getting pre-approved for a car loan. 

    This is scary.  My voice shakes when he asks me if I want to start the loan application.

    Obsessively checking the internet for the best possible deal on a Nissan Sentra or Versa exhilarates me.  Talking about a loan with an actual bank employee makes me feel like I am 6 years old, and cowering under my covers, afraid of the world.

    It's hard, at the moment, to feel in control of what's going on.  But I just talked to Renee and she said I sound like I'm in control.  So that's confusing.

    Several times in my life, my emotional state has been characterized as the exact opposite of how I feel.  Scattered vs. collected.  Even keel vs. sporadic.  Broken vs. Held together.

    Even though I won't receive a paycheck for over a month, it's time to look for cars.  : - )

    -Mike

Sunday, 21 June 2009

  • Two weeks down, three to go

    I have been a summer school teacher for 5 days.  Three of which I was lead teaching our SpEd. Reading class, which has 9 students on the roster.

    Myself and the other reading teachers have an 110 minute block to teach one reading and one vocabulary objective.  This one objective may be something that would take one or two weeks during the school year (for example, my upcoming lesson on simile, metaphor, personification, idiom, AND hyperbole).   

    One of the challenges of this schedule is simply the amount of time itself.  Before my class even starts at 9:30, the students have been in this room for 50 minutes with either an intensive reading or math lesson.  Which means, they've already put forth some effort.  Add on top of that another 110 minutes, and you've got a recipe for disengagement. 

    Which means the ball is in our (the teachers') court to engage with high energy.  And it it's been working, somewhat, and sometimes.

    The next time I lead teach is Tuesday.  Which means I haven't felt the rush this weekend that I did last weekend, when 4 documents were due Sunday night.  Instead, tonight I just have 2 documents due.  And neither will take too long.  But it would be so nice to get ahead. 

    The students themselves are pretty fun.  A good group of kids that I enjoy teaching.  But it's a challenge.  A very serious challenge. 

    -Mike

Sunday, 14 June 2009

  • 1 week down, and what feels like a million more to go

    I have officially completed my first week of institute training.  Yahooo!

    It's alot easier to type Yahoo than say Yahoo.  There aren't words to communicate how relieved I am that this week is finally over (when I first typed this sentence, I accidentally wrote 'year' instead of 'week,' does that give you a sense of how long the last 6 days have felt!). 

    We've been working at a pretty fast pace since Monday.  I wake up at 5:30 and go to bed at midnight.  At first our bus left at 6:35am, arrived at about 6:50am, and left at 4:45pm.  Then, on Thursday and Friday, our bus departure time was moved all the way back to 6:45am, what a treat!  And on Friday it was announced that our new departure time is 6:50am, which feels down right luxurious!

    Lunch typically takes 30 minutes, sometimes more and sometimes less, and on one day this last week there was a 'working lunch' where we ate during a session.  Every hour and a half there are 10 minute breaks, that feel like 2 minute breaks when you include the walking time from the various rooms we use for sessions and the necessary bathroom breaks. 

    Besides these short moments of rest, we are either participating in a session or working on lesson plans.  That's it.  That's what we do.  Lesson plans and sessions. 

    On Monday and Tuesday evenings, after we finished our 6:35am-5pm day, there were sessions from 7pm-8:30ish, as well.  Then, by Wednesday night lesson plans were due for everyone.  Which meant lots of hours in the 'Resource Room.'  And by a lot of hours, I mean 3-4.  And Thursday was the same thing, except after my 3 hours in the resource room I spent another 3 hours working in my apartment. 

    All of this is my way to say, "This is harder than I thought it would be!" 

    But the reason I'm doing this is for that student who's reading on a second grade level.  That needs to be my mantra as I continue in this process.  (more to come later, maybe). 

Tuesday, 09 June 2009

  • Institute, Day 2

    In the time between our last conversation about my entrance into TFA-land, I've completed induction and moved on to institute.  Logistically, this means I'm in the same apartment as before.  However, an additional 450 corpsmembers from across the United States have joined us here on the G-Tech campus.  On Monday morning I was schlepped on a bus (mine leaves at 6:35am, every morning) to Inman Middle School, my summer school placement.  I'll be teaching 8th grade reading.  Beginning Monday the 15th, I'll spend 110 minutes as the lead teacher every other day.  Which means there's no time to waste!  But I'm still not exactly sure how to lesson plan, and our resource room hasn't opened, therefore I'm gracing the world wide web (did you know it's a series of tubes?) with my words. 

    I now have a face for the achievement gap.  The first interaction the 09 CMs (that corpsmembers, to you) have with students comes by way of a reading diagnostic exam.  You may be thinking, "I didn't know that Mike was familiar with reading assessment procedures?"  And you would have been right yesterday evening before 7pm, but since that time, I've become a fully qualified sophist.  I am still somewhat in shock after administering this exam to my first student.  Not all students were at this level, in fact, I'm not sure any other teacher had a student 6 years below grade level.   But can you imagine being an eighth grader and reading on a second grade level?  What kind of system passes a student for six years without making any significant gains in his/her academic progress!!! 

    I'm almost positive that I was always at least one or two years above average grade level reading.  And sometimes I felt insecure that I wasn't advanced enough.  I remember thinking that being "on grade level" was actually a nice way of saying that someone was a bit slow.  Not gonna lie.  Now, I know that the designation "on grade level" is, for many, an audacious goal which would require time and hard work.  My young friend and I have a lot of work ahead of us. 

    In other news, there's a ridiculous amount of work to do, and we haven't yet been taught how to do it all.  So, I'm going to sleep so that I can be refreshed, energized, and ready for whatever tomorrow brings!

    But just to let any of you who may be reading this know, I'm probably going to need reading mentors during the regular school year to help read with students one on one.  So, please spare both of us the phone call where I try to guilt-trip you into volunteering some time at my placement school (still don't know where I'll be placed).  Instead, just go ahead and leave your name and I'll keep that info in my mental cash-box. 

    Peace,

    -Mike

Tuesday, 02 June 2009

  • Teach for America Induction week, day 1.

    Today I officially started my journey with Teach for America.  The new recruits assigned to Atlanta  moved into Crecine hall on Georgia Tech's campus to learn just what exactly it means to be a corpsmembers. 

    This week is called induction, but what we do is very similar to church camp.  First, we sign in and receive a nametag, and a massive stuffed binder, just for this week's activities.  Our nametags have a small sticker in the top right corner, the sticker's color designates your small group.  They aren't called small groups, of course, that's a church camp term.  They call them transition teams, but really, it's a small group.  We eat together, reflect together, and do teambuilding activities together. 

    That's the first thing we 'did,' a teambuilding activity with our transition team.  Then, we attended a welcome reception -- essentially an hour of lite snacks and mingling.  After that, we moved onto the "Theory of Change" dinner.  It was essentially the formal welcome dinner where several speakers reflected on TFA's mission and the theory of change.  Two alumni spoke, as well as a cm (corpsmember) who just finished her first year and one cm who is brand new.  And guess who got asked to speak on behalf of this new class? Yours Truly!  It was kinda random, and I got picked because I figured out who my program director is and asked her alot of questions, which she took as initiative. But it was nerveracking but alot of fun. 

    I really enjoy public speaking and, despite my even keel sometimes stoic personality, I come alive when speaking about certain topics.  I felt envigorated, energized, and electric.  However, how did I sound?  Shaky, nervous?  Probably, but I got some good feedback so I think it went well. 

    After the long walk back to the dorm, we have about an hour break before 'study sessions' for those who have not taken or passed their GACE (Georgia Assesment for the Certification of Educators) exams.  And I'd like to shower before this event, which will happen at 9:30, so I'm going to sign off. 

    I'm excited.  Excited about this opportunity.  And I'm excited that I'm excited enough about this opporunity to sit down and write a blog post.  I hope to keep up a daily reflection of my experiences.  If you're interested in hearing about them, please comment and encourage me if these updates become infrequent. 

    -Mike

M_slack

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    • Name: mike
    • Country: United States
    • State: Oklahoma
    • Metro: Oklahoma City
    • Birthday: 10/9/1985
    • Gender: Male
    • Member Since: 2/14/2006

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