Teacher's hands

Monday, June 18th—my first day as a teacher. It didn’t feel much like teaching because we started by giving them a test. We call it a diagnostic, and it doesn’t count for a grade. It actually includes all the material that we’ll be teaching this summer, so it’s supposed to gauge where the students are in the process. Math builds on itself wonderfully, so once we know what they know, we can figure out where to go from there.

My students!

I have 4 students. One came a few days late for a good reason, but she will have some catching up to do. Another one is very smart, but she doesn’t think so. We’ll have to work on her confidence. Her friend doesn’t seem to be that invested, but that’s what I’m here to help. My last student, bless him, is behind the others. He has so much on his plate without adding math homework to it. He pays attention, though.

The coolest thing I have discovered about the actual work of being a teacher is getting teacher’s hands. I use the overhead projector to deliver my lessons. Thus, I have to clean off my projector and transparencies of the various colors of pens I use. I always used to think the ink on my teachers’ hands was odd and a little gross. Now I realize not only that it is inevitable, but that it represents so much of who teachers are: the teacher’s hands hold the future of these children—their learning, their hope, their inspiration. I am proud of my teacher’s hands.

First week of teaching down; three to go. Actually, it’s closer to 148 weeks, including the future 2 years I’m facing. I’ve gotten some great ideas from other math teachers here. They made a specific effort to put together some of the games and tools they use successfully in their own classrooms. I’m running on little sleep (5 hours at the most per night), and I’m still having to write lots of coherent lesson plans. Then I get to shake myself awake the next morning, give my lesson and pretend to be energetic. Uff. How do people keep this up?

Answer: the weekends.

A month later...

Truly a teacher now.

Let me start at the beginning. Friday, we as the class of corps members at this particular high school in Houston, graduated to being teachers. We were given a small ceremony, where they really did play Pomp and Circumstance, call us forward and present us with “teacher name” tags—last name only. Then we were free for the weekend.

This freedom involves much resting and relaxing for the first time the whole week. What did I do? I was social until late at night. Friday afternoon, my regional corps had a social at a local outdoor bar. Yes, just about every social they have is at a bar of some sort. This one had live country music, though, so I don’t mind too much. After a while, I might be more able to convince people to get up and dance there. The not-so-cool part was driving a friend’s car home for her. I wasn’t thrilled with the thought of driving in big-city traffic. I admit, though, I did appreciate the power of a steering wheel in my own hands again.

A good portion of Saturday was spent in sweet slumber—and you never know how great that feels until you’ve been running the whole week on between 4 and 6 hours per night. Yes, I did work on lesson plans, etc. on Saturday. In fact that’s what awakened me rather abruptly: I had a meeting scheduled with my advisor and my co-teacher to review rough drafts of lesson plans. I met my co-teacher outside the advisor’s door. He didn’t answer our knocks. So I called him. I could hear the phone ringing through the door. Then it stopped. We heard the deadbolt slide into the lock. No other response. Yes, we woke him up. So this is what good teachers do on the weekend.

Saturday night: I got to be an Astros fan for a full professional baseball game. TfA got 200 free tickets for this game, and we all took the bus downtown together. I've heard they are not the most consistent team, but they showed up to play that night and made all their local fans proud. Yes, the Astros won. I got to see Craig Biggio make his 2,989th hit. Now that is old news--congrats to him on the big 3000. We were in literally the top rows of the stadium, but it was wonderful. GNO got rowdy and started our corps cheer—which no one outside of TfA would understand. We got some great looks from the locals.

The next morning, a truly dear friend from college drove half an hour across town to pick me up and give me a ride to church, half an hour back across town. It warmed my heart to be with friends on Father's Day, when I was missing my own family. I even got to join her family for lunch. They took me with them to Chili’s and let me celebrate with them. Being far from home, this was a welcome bit of family and familiarity in the midst of a hectic time.

Introducing...

Ms. Last Name, Geometry teacher. I graduated. They had a ceremony and gave us new name tags and everything. More about that soon.

Now for the Institute.

This week has been one long rollercoaster. Sunday, we pulled up to a driveway full of people: some hot and sweaty (who had clearly been there all day), and some just starting to unload their cars. We were told to come on through, and those poor, tired souls helped us pull stuff out and moved it up to the building for us. We were sent through a maze of tables and stations to register, collect IDs, turn in paperwork, and whatever else we needed to accomplish to get started. Then we were released to find our rooms.

Mine is on the 10^th floor. I take the stairs at least once a day and feel like I’ve gotten enough exercise for a week. My calves hurt for the first two days. The rooms are decent, though. We have a corner desk, several shelves, a little chest of drawers, a kind of sketchy closet, a mirror with a light, and a bouch.

Yes, a bouch. A bed-couch. At night, it’s a regular twin-size bed. During the day, though, it pushes back into the wall to become a couch of sorts, kind of like a hide-away without the huge frame and top cushions. I’ll put up a picture when I get my camera cord back from NM. The bathroom is down the hall. I’ve not had any problems with it, but I’m still afraid to shower without shoes.

Monday morning, breakfast starts at 5:30. The buses to various schools leave between 6:10 and 6:45. Mine leaves at 6:30 exactly. I know this because I missed it the first day, along with about 5 others. This means I caught a ride with another guy who missed the bus, and we drove like crazy (sometimes literally) through the maze of highways in Houston. They have about 7 major highways and interstates, no kidding. Some places have about 5 overpasses all stacked up. I have no idea how people manage this on a daily basis. We made it, though, after looking for a street which I don’t think actually exists, and having to backtrack a mile or two.

The first day involved a lot of seminars on how to take state standards and write a learning objective, from which we can make our lesson plans. Unfortunately, all of those words get interchanged a lot, so straightening out which one someone meant is often a challenge. It was a long day, and I felt a good bit overwhelmed by the time we got back at 4:30. I have a wonderful group of other corps members at this school, though, who are all teaching math. We are guided by a 2005 corps member, who has been breaking his back to help us in any way possible, so I am grateful, and I’m staying positive.

Monday night, all 700+ corps members here were packed into an auditorium. The Greater New Orleans corps made our leaders proud. We have a cheer, and it echoed as we enter the marble atrium and processed into the auditorium. We got settled down and had some good presentations by past corps members, Houston Institute staff and the founder of TfA herself.

The last few days have been much the same: workshops and lectures and seminars from 7:00 to 4:00, with breakfast at 5:45, travel time from 6:30 to 7:00 and 4:00 to 4:30, occasional meetings in the evenings, a little yoga to loosen up, and crash somewhere between 10:30 and 11:30. There was one gem in the midst of this routine. Tuesday night, we had the opportunity within our school groups (called Corps Member Adviser, or CMA groups) to create a personal life map, a sort of pictorial autobiography. We had dinner together, walked across campus looking for our assigned room, got slightly lost and settled in a second-floor common area. We worked on these life maps for maybe 25 min., then shared them for almost another hour. I realized again through this that I have been blessed, and that these people are truly remarkable. Such different stories and paths and backgrounds have all led to this same place.

We're all here for the same reason, and that reason becomes a reality on Monday morning. All our work, our sleepless nights, our lesson planning and re-planning, our coffee downing and hurried eating leads to this. In one week, we have learned what most education majors learning a year or more. What we learned in a day, they learn in a semester. Given, we will not be the best teachers this first day. In fact, we'll all be scared and nervous and still have some bugs to work out. We will be dedicated, though. We've fought so hard to be here, to reach this point, because of our students. Monday, we meet them, and the work is all worth it.

Please keep us in your prayers.

Love and blessings.

Whirlwind

What a whirlwind of a week. Where did the time go?

Tuesday is almost a blur now. As I was getting ready to leave for the airport, I heard a knock on my door. My sister came to say goodbye before she left for work. It was short and sweet--no tears, a few inside jokes, and she was headed toward the door. Dad caught her on the way out. i don't know what he said, but by the time she left, all of us were losing it.

We were ok 'til we got to the airport. First, tell me this: when was the last time you heard a live Swing Dixie band in an airport at 11:00 in the morning? What kind of a sign is this when I'm finally headed to New Orleans and there's a band playing Lou'siana music to send me off. I got a picture.

My goodbyes with Mom and Dad started off well, but they never end without some tears. Some people might not appreciate that in the middle of a busy airport, but despite the looks we got, I could have asked for no deeper sign of love, and I loved in return.

The flight was smooth. We had one stop in Dallas, but I didn't even have to deplane. I was picked up by the TfA corps member I'd stayed with in May, and I can hardly say how nice it was to see a friendly face. I stayed with her one night, along with another new corps member, and we were off at 6:30 Wednesday morning. We registered and got settled in the dorm on the campus we were using for Induction. A bunch of people showed up an hour later or so, all dressed up and looking professional. The other girl and I felt like we'd missed something, as we were standing there in our jeans and tank tops. They were headed to an interview, we came to find out. Our interviews weren't until the afternoon.

Speaking of which, I was grouped with about 10 other new corps members to travel out to a little city about 45 min. outside of New Orleans. It's a cute little place. I don't know how big it is. We were herded into a room with 5 school principals already seated in it. The process was explained to me as a sort of speed-dating interview. We introduced ourselves and told what subject we would soon be highly qualified to teach. Then we were sent one at a time to speak with principals who might need such a teacher. I had three interviews. The first was with a lady who had started her own school. This school includes grades 5-7, and it is designed for students who are several grade levels behind in work. The work is very individualized and based around interdisciplinary projects. The students can take a test at the end of ever semester and, if they pass, move up to the next grade. The second principal was very young to be in such a position. She was very proud of her K-8th grade school's accomplishments and is determined to make it the best in the state of LA.

The third principal reminded me very much of my principal in high school. This was my most comfortable interview. The way she described the school sounded a lot like mine, and it has many of the same extracurriculars. She also happened to need a Geometry teacher for this coming year. As the last principals left, we were rounded back up, and we went off to dinner with the corps who were placed there the last few years. This is a fantastic group of people, believe me. That night, they invited us, all 120 of us, out to a local joint with a live band. The music was great: somewhere between rock and country and brass band. The company was wonderful. I got to sit and talk with a few new friends for most of the night. Sadly, I haven't seen them much since.

Guess what: 8:00AM Thursday morning, as I was headed downstairs to breakfast, I met one of the girls who had driven us out to this district. She told me that the director needed to see me. The first things through my head were that none of my interviews had felt solid, and that I was probably going to be told I needed to go with this other group who were going to interview in the Recovery School District in downtown New Orleans.

Instead, she smiles as I enter the downstairs lounge she has turned into a makeshift office. She says, "I just wanted to let you know that you have your placement already. What do you think?"

What?! Dude! Cool!! Wait, this means I have a classroom. I have students who will be looking for me, waiting for me come August. I had darn-well better get my act together and be ready and waiting for them, too... Sweet!

So we just bummed around for a good portion of that day. We drove back out to a K-8 school in that district to observe a little summer reading program a TfA corps member had started. We got back in time for dinner and a lecture/seminar about I-don't-remember-what. All I know was that it was hot and sticky, we had packed 120 people in there, the kitchen staff wouldn't let us go get drinks, and the air conditioner was broken in that room.

The next days I hardly remember. We had more seminars to familiarize us with procedures in New Orleans, the principles of TfA, the goals of the corps, etc. Good stuff, but there's been way too much proactive interference (new stuff getting in the way) since then. I do know that I spent a good bit of both nights in the lounge/lobby, borrowing math books to study for the test I had to take on Saturday. The math test turned out to be about what I expected, which was not pleasant or easy, but I think I survived. The other test I had to take was on principles of learning and teaching. What educational training have I had in this area? None. Conveniently enough, though, much of the research to validate what they teach teachers comes from psychology--and I'd just finished a class on learning and behavior. Thank you, Lord. This second test feels like it went great. In between, a few of us New Orleans folks got a scenic tour of the area around Baton Rouge as we looked for a Cracker Barrel that wasn't there. The Sonic served us nicely, and the drive was lovely. :-)

Saturday night, people went out, so what was I to do? Yes, I went out. Fun? Not really, until we went by the Cafe du Monde. My first time. Sunday, we packed up, loaded up, and headed for Houston to begin our Institute training. I caught a ride with a wonderfully sweet corps member. I was planning on reading a good bit more of my pre-Institute assignments, but we ended up talking the whole 5 hours. I regret not one minute.

If I ever did, I have no doubt now that God watches over us. He has left a train of signs. He provides just what we need, just when we need it. He teaches us that we don't need everything we think we do. He has a plan, and He will see it through in each of us. No matter where this road leads, He walks with me and cares for me and prepares the way for me long before I round the bend.

The next corner is coming.

All the love in me is yours, through Christ our Savior.

Milestones

Mile-marker #1) I own a car! My dad and I went to Santa Fe last week to scope out some stuff. The first car we saw was at this dealership: a beautiful little Toyota Camry. It's not new by any means (not with the mileage it has on it), but it runs smoothly, and I have heard it will last for maybe twice as far as it has already gone. It's somewhere between sage and emerald green. Mom says it changes colors with the light.

Now don't worry, we didn't just buy the first car we saw. We spent the next few days searching online, scouring other dealerships, and even looking for some less typical sources of used cars (ever thought about old rentals?). We came back eventually to the first and what we believe is the most reliable car for the best deal. Can you tell I'm a little excited?

Mile-marker #2) Too many friends recently have gotten engaged or married. Not to say that I think this is either unwise or evil or even tedious. In fact, I am truly happy for them and I pray God will bless them richly for decades to come. I admit, though, it's been a bit overwhelming.
I love any excuse for a party, especially when it involves dancing. I only hope that much consideration has been put into these relationships.

I don't know what it is, but Spring so often seems to get to people. They start doing crazy things. I do hope this is not what overtook some of my friends. May God bless them in their decision-making and in their futures.

Mile-marker #3) Maybe the biggest marker is this: I leave for training on the day after tomorrow. Actually, I have interviews in New Orleans first. I may or may not get the classroom of my choosing in the district I would prefer, but I'll leave that to their discretion. Then I go to Houston for more than a month to learning how to manage a classroom and deliver self-planned lessons. Then I'm back to my school, so I will be in place for the next milestones.