Moving In

Moving in has been a good deal of fun. I've got nice neighbors on both sides (one has already invited me over for beef soup). We've slowly furnished the house with purchasing mattresses/frames, a dresser, and a desk. The kitchen table, couches, and tables are coming soon along with a free entertainment center (provided we dismantle it and transport it to our house). If you ever feel the urge to visit southern Arkansas, then there will be a place for you to stay. The town is quite nice to new teachers--many are really excited about us. Everyone's eyes light up when I or others tell them that we are here to teach (it's a pretty cool feeling).

We found a house!

Lucas and I held out until the end of the week to decide on a house and the wait was worth it. My house is a 2 bedroom 2 bathroom house with a porch, kitchen, eating area, and a living room. It's also purple. No kidding, you read that correctly. It's not an ugly shade of purple, but closer to a grape or wine purple. Inside, the carpet is bluish gray with the kitchen and hallways to the bedrooms having tiled floors. The house is 50 years old, but it was updated last year with new everything pretty much (including all of the appliances). It looks amazing on the inside. The kitchen has 1,000,000 cabinets with removable shelving and the bathrooms have huge mirrors, stone countertops (not sure of the type), and one has a walk-in closet. The house is not on the lake--it's only one street over from it. I should have pictures up in the week so you don't have to rely upon my words.

The Delta

I'm finally in the Delta. When we arrived in MS we got a bus tour of the Delta by one of the professors at Delta State. We went to Dockery Farms where many of the Delta Blues artists got their start before heading up to Chicago or Memphis. We also saw Fanny Lou Hamer's town and resting place along with Mound Bayou. We then finished with visiting the site where the levee's broke (greatest natural disaster in America before Katrina). When I get a little more time, I'll add some pictures and elaborate on what I learned at each location (the Delta has a ton of history about the blues and civil rights).

The best part, though, about orientation was the trip to Po' Monkey's Lounge (yes, that's how it's spelled and pronounced). It doesn't look like much from the outside (http://www.mississippideltabluesinfo.com/images/Po_Monkey_s.JPG), but it's a true jook joint--term for a southern establishment featuring blues music, alcohol, and dancing. It's one of the last original ones in the south (do a search on wikipedia or google for "jook joint" for more information). They had an authentic blues band there that night and it was tons of fun. The music and everything was amazing.

Yesterday I met the Superintendent, her AS, and the principals at each school. They surprised us by bringing in pizza and cheesecake in the middle of our meeting, and they all seemed really happy to have TFA teachers at their schools. I am now teaching 8th grade science--I had thought I was 7th all summer. My room is pretty nice as is the whole school. I've got a white board instead of chalk board, which I'm pretty happy about as I can't stand writing with chalk. I lucked out too with science books as 8th grade is getting new books this year. I get to go into my room tomorrow and take a longer look at everything in it and to begin setting it up. In other news, I passed my Praxis 2 in Biology Content Knowledge!

I've been looking for houses in the past two days and the search has been pretty good. We've got one near the lake that we may take, but we are looking at a bunch tomorrow and I should have a decision by then. Right now my time is taken up by either house hunting, going to Delta potlucks (tfa 2nd years host them), or unpacking my standards. I take the standards set down by the state of Arkansas and figure out how to teach them--what previous knowledge do students need, what skills do they need to learn, how does this standard fit in with others? It's invigorating. I'd probably find it more exciting had I learned that I was 8th grade before doing alot of the 7th grade standards. I won't complain too much. I'm sure I'll have to adapt to much more in the next two years.

I will repost soon with more details as I've given a general story for most parts of my time here.

We're Done

Summer school teaching ended today and Institute ended yesterday with the closing ceremonies. It was a really fun last day. We had "explo day" where students came around to their rooms with their parents and participated in activities that showcased what we accomplished this summer. The 7th grade science teachers did many of our cool experiments and attracted a crowd near the end of the day. Both the closing ceremonies and our all school meeting had slideshows that showcased the last 5 weeks. I really cannot believe it's been that long.

I'm almost all packed up--I'll probably load the car tonight. Tomorrow at 8 AM I'll be heading to the Delta.

Training was pretty intense, but rewarding and worth it. I feel prepared for at least the first day. I definitely have a bunch of books I'll be reading before the year starts, though. This really was the first time I was challenged to this extent (sophomore year with MT comes in at a distant second). I feel now that I am used to getting up a 5:30am and working even after I get back at 4:30pm. I know that the Delta will present a new and even higher challenge. I know this sounds corny, but my job as a corps member isn't to save the world. It's simply to be the most effective teacher for every student that comes into my classroom.

TFA is its own country. We run on TFAST (Teach for America Standard Time); we choose our own holidays (work on July 4 and take off an afternoon as a surprise); we have our own laws (rules); we have our own core beliefs; we have our own language.

Imagine I said the following to you:

Each day I go to a CS session and sometimes an LS session. I meet with CMA each day to go over the TAL rubric. I'm receiving many BPs and some Ns, luckily no PNs. I need to work on my I and E sections of the TAL rubric. I've also had to collect and enter ISAT data this week. Each week we have DCA where we talk about social issues. Although RFoC is Aramark's brand, it's where I eat each day. I must make sure to attend my ILTs each week and to attend LPCs and CS differentiated sessions. After all, I am a CM and not a CMA, SD, or SOM. However, those positions are quite important at my school. At school, I have my collaborative teaching in the morning and LT in the afternoon, and when not in session, PD time. I sometimes use that time to meet with my FA.

Most of these terms are used regularly (I think it has to do with their obsession with efficiency), but here is what it all means (we also try to prevent each other from using these abbreviations when we go out on the weekends):
CS: Curriculum specialist
LS: Literacy specialist
CMA: Corps Member Advisor
TAL: Teaching as Leadership
ISAT: Institute Student Achievement Tracker (best guess on this one)
DCA: Diversity, Community, and Achievement
RFoC: Real Food on Campus
CM: Corps Member
SD: School Director
SOM: School Operations Manager
FA: Faculty Advisor
PD: Professional Development
LT: Lead Teach
ILT: Institute Learning Team
BP: Basic Proficiency
N: Novice
PN: Pre-novice
I: Investment section of the rubric
E: Execution section of the rubric

Overdue update

This week was, by far, the easiest week yet of Institute. I've had 3 students come consistently to class and most of the classes went really well. We had a review day on tuesday and I used a variety of ways to introduce material such as short videos, drawing, and pictures--the students really enjoyed them. July 4 was not too eventful as we still had to attend curriculum sessions in the morning. We did get to sleep in an extra hour. I never thought that I'd be happy to get up at 7 in the summer. The rest of the day was spent hanging out, sleeping, and a movie. No one could really party because of having to teach class on Thursday. The rest of the week was uneventful--no food fights or power outages to report. Next Saturday I leave for the Delta, which means a 10 hour car ride. Luckily, I've got a friend riding with me so the trip won't be too bad. I'm sure I'll have more once I arrive in the Delta.

Session 2

Out of 8 students, 4 returned. I gained another that came in from the other summer school session at the school for a total of 5. It didn't help that many of our kids walk to school and that it was raining today. We might get a few tomorrow as many of us called our kids/families to see where they were, but many are taking this time to go on vacation. This happened last year at Summerbridge--it's the only time many parents can take off for vacation, so everything else comes second.

The day still ran smoothly and class went quite well. My pacing is improving and I did not feel rushed for any part of class as I've had in the past. I was able to get through the lecture, take questions, have guided practice, have independent practice, and have time to show the students how to light money on fire. No, I didn't break any federal laws. I put a $5 dollar bill in a 50/50 alcohol/water solution held it up with tongs and then lit it on fire. The rubbing alcohol burnt off first and then the remaining water in the bill doused the fire out. The fire never reached the bill, so no material actually burned (ie no worrying about the fire alarm going off). The students were quite impressed and we worked a bit of science in by predicting what would happen and why and then once it happened coming up with an explanation. While this wasn't aligned with any objective we taught, it functioned more as an reward for coming to class and staying on task during class as it was at the end. Tomorrow I may show how to put a flame near a balloon and not pop the balloon (put water in it and then blow it up). I'll probably have non fire experiments in the future, but these are working quite well to keep the students' attention/motivation.

Luckily, all of the teachers in my collaborative planned out our objectives so that we'd be ahead in teaching. This allows me to take tomorrow to go over the midterms with each student individually and discuss his or her weak areas and how to improve them. I can also give mini-lessons on the areas that all of the class missed. This will be followed up by more comprehensive review quizzes every 2 days probably (the kids breeze through most questions so time won't be much of an issue, especially if the quizzes only cover a few objectives at a time).

We found another kenyon alum working for TFA here at Institute. I think there are plans for the kc corps members to hang out with him or go out to dinner this weekend.

End of Session 1

Things are getting much better and much easier. I think part of this is due to getting the lessons and skills necessary to be effective in the classroom. For example, we just learned various strategies for English Language Learners (ELL). I learned how there were different levels of comprehension that affect student performance in the classroom--ie just because a student can converse with his friends in a conversation doesn't mean that he will be able to understand the abstract content specific terms the teacher uses in class. We learned more strategies and I find myself almost always implement some new skill or method each day as I get my education class before teaching 5th period.

Friday was an interesting day at school as well. It was the last day for many of the students--many received their report cards, TAKS scores, and the notice of whether they would be promoted to 8th or had to stay for an extra two weeks to get the promotion. Being the last day of school, the middle schoolers definitely had some things planned--such as a food fight. Yep, we got a message over the loud speaker listing off each male teacher's name and then asking for all TFA teachers to go to the cafeteria. But, by the time we arrived it was over.

I also gave my students their midterm assessment on Friday, too. We are mandated to give them and I found my results quite useful and meaningful. Each student was tested on the objectives we had taught until this point and they were asking 3 questions for each objective. Many of the students had similar grades (such as missing only a few questions). However, it was obvious that many students were missing the same questions in similar ways. There was no cheating as almost each student was at his or her own table and I was watching all 8 take the test. What this meant was that the fault was on my end (which follows TFA's belief of "teacher's actions lead to students' actions). When I saw this I realized how little we learn from percentages on tests. Imagine two students get an 75% on a test. Most would assume that they performed the same on the test. However, if the test had an even distribution of questions around the subject material, then the performances could be different. Maybe the first student missed the "tough questions" on each section but got 75% of each section right and the second student aced the first two sections yet only managed 50% on the last two. This indicates two different students who have performed differently in class and two different strategies to help them improve their future test scores.

I've been somewhat skeptical of the idea of a "standardized education," but it's helpful to have a starting point and a method for knowing what was successfully taught to the students. Furthermore, we know that students will (or are supposed to) have a core body of knowledge. This ensures that all students are getting an equal education because if 100% of what was taught was left up to the teacher then some students wouldn't get the same education as their peers. Imagine a class learning mostly about biology and physics but little about chemistry. Or a class only learning about world war 1 and world war 2 and not learning about vietnam or korea. Sure, standard based education isn't perfect and many hate "teaching to the test." It seems as though many would want to teach for education's/knowledge's sake (and I would 100% agree with that). There is the possibility of a balance between the two where if you take care of the education/knowledge part then the testing should take care of itself (an approach used by a great spanish teacher in high school).

The hurdles, in my limited experience, seem to stem from the tests themselves. The fact is, many teachers "teach to the test" willingly. The tests they "teach to" are final exams, papers, quizzes, projects, and presentations. Almost every standardized test is a test full of multiple choice questions. MC questions are good for testing basic knowledge facts of a subject, but they don't do much in showing upper levels of Bloom's Taxonomy such analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Of course change would take lots of time and money, but it would be great if our state based assessments were papers, presentations, debates, essay based tests (yes, even in science), lab reports and any other method that tests a realistic use of education. In college and after, we have to argue for points, communicate our ideas in writing and speaking, solve problems, and carry out procedures or calculations methodically. When was the last time a lawyer, doctor, accountant, architect, etc went to work and filled in one of four bubbles with a number 2 pencil for his or her salary?


Tomorrow I'll find out which students return and which new students I get for my classes. No one is quite sure what will happen, so it'll be interesting.