I'm back, and it's a long one! Get comfortable :)

Let’s be honest. I am a bad blogger, and for that, I apologize. For a while, I was just too busy to post, then I was just never in the right mood to write, but I will now attempt to recap what I’ve been doing for the last six weeks that’s kept me from doing a better job here. :)

Many moons ago, I mentioned Induction. One week in NYC, staying in NYU dorms with four other girls and one sweet, fluorescently lit, yellow bathroom. Good times. Four of the five of us got along really well and had ourselves as grand of a time as could be had at a lame TFA Induction. The fifth girl that stayed in our suite kind of pissed me off on day 3, leaving little room for recovery.

Bascially, NYC TFAers can go to one of two schools (Pace University or Bank Street College) to get our Masters. We were discussing the merits of each one day in our dorm. Pace is partnering with TFA this year to customize their Med’s to really focus on urban education and work carefully around our schedules. The degree is also free (after our Americorps stipend) because of the major discount Pace is giving us as a result of the partnership. The only thing we’d been told about Bank Street up to this point was “Oh yeah, or you cooould do Bank Street if you really wanted to, but it’s $23,000 and they’re not tailoring the coursework to urban education at all.” Roommate 5 announced that she was “absolutely opting for Bank Street because she wasn’t about to follow an Ivy League education up with some two-bit state school!” Direct quote straight from Dartmouth girl’s mouth, my friends! She was well aware that I had gone to Madison and another roommate had gone to Penn State. We stared in silent disbelief of her tactless snobbery.

She’d never heard of Madison and had clearly been told her whole life that only simpletons attend state schools. *** Ignorance comes in many forms! ***.

I’m shocked by the number of Ivy Leaguers in TFA. I was expecting many more crunchy hippy types. But most of the people I’ve met went to Ivy League schools or small, private liberal arts colleges (many of whom felt compelled to explain that school could have been an Ivy League school, but the administration decided not to). So the typical TFAer in no way bears any resemblance to a laid back hippy. BUT I have liked almost everyone I’ve met. There are a lot of very interesting people in TFA who have done a lot of incredible things, and I’ve really enjoyed talking to most of them. Sure, I could have done without interactions like the one described above, but to be fair, I also met some jackasses that went to state schools. Clearly, every school has its gems and its tools. One such tool came from my very own beloved Madison….

In a discussion about interacting with our future students’ parents, we were questioning how honest we should be about the fact that we’re first-year teachers. (Some past corps members have advised us to lie and say that we’ve been teaching for a few years to establish some credibility.) One guy present announced his conclusion, “I’m sure that within the first couple minutes of talking to any of these parents that we’ll establish our intellectual superiority. They’ll pick up on that and trust that we know how to teach their kid.” Intellectual superiority?! Are you kidding?! The fact is that any teacher -regardless of what school they attended or what GPA they may have had- could stand to learn a great deal from their students’ parents and family members- and this attitude of ‘intellectual superiority’ will undoubtedly keep that from happening. Jackass.

Ok. That’s about all on Induction. I thought it was kind of a silly waste of time. It was a solidly packed week of presentation after presentation about “The Movement” we were joining. Stuff we were all well versed in before the dozen powerpoint presentations.

Onto Institute… We left straight from NYC Induction. We boarded charter buses and went on our merry way to Philadelphia- 500 sweaty, naïvely smiling faces, showing no sign of any knowledge of what was in store. Upon arrival to Philly, I learned that my luggage had been left on the sidewalk in NYC because they ran out of room in the bus’s stowing area. Awesome. Several hours later, 2 of the 3 pieces of luggage arrived in the staff vans. The missing piece? My bedding. No pillow. No blanket. 5 weeks. I inquired about the luggage several times after those first few days. Two different TFA staffers reported seeing the laundry bag that matched my description precisely, so I didn’t want to bother buying a new pillow and blanket. I later realized that was a mistake, as they never did get it to me. I slept on a crumpled up sweatshirt and a borrowed dorm blanket for the 5 wks because I was sure they’d come through with it. They said they had it and would bring it to the dorm! Oh well. I spent very little time in my bed anyway.

Institute was a breeding ground for extremes. Extreme type-A personalities having panic attacks and being taken away in stretchers (not joking). Extreme lack of sleep and nutrition. Extreme poverty in the neighborhood surrounding my school (worse than I saw in SE DC or the little of S. Bronx I’ve seen). Extremely demanding/ridiculous schedule. Extreme resentment toward TFA for telling us to ‘make sure to take care of ourselves!’ while expecting us to maintain that superhuman schedule. Extremely dedicated advisors and staff. Extremely rewarding, inspiring days with my students. Extremely upsetting, discouraging days with my students. Extreme stress of finding roommates and a NYC apartment while living in Philly with 700 acquaintances. Needless to say, all of these factors joined forces to create a challenging, draining, amazing five weeks.

I guess it would make sense at this point to give you some idea of what my days looked like… I taught writing to a class of 8th grade summer school students, and I was in a teaching “collaborative” with 3 other corps members who taught math, science, and reading. I got up at 5:30 every morning, took my sandal-footed shift in the dorm shower, got ready, walked about 15 humid minutes to the dining hall where I waited in line to pick up my boxed lunch and my breakfast, ate with a few sleepy-eyed friends, and then made my way to the rickety school bus. I arrived at school around 7:30 am, submitted drafts of the lesson plans I wrote to use over the next few days, and did whatever poster-making and other prep work was necessary with my group.

The students arrived around 8:30. I had only four students. At the beginning of the summer school term, I had 6, then 8, then 11, then 13, then 4- where we stayed. We later found out that another summer school had opened closer to many of the students’ homes, so they decided to save themselves the commute and attend that one instead.
Each day opened with Math-Literacy Hour (MLH). All four teachers were present for this period, and each of us taught 30 minutes of math and 30 minutes of literacy. When MLH wrapped up, Reading class began. At that point, I got to go around to other classrooms and observe other TFA corps members’ teaching styles. Then I headed back to my classroom, taught writing, then headed to my sessions with the curriculum specialist, then to sessions with my advisor. We were at the school every day until 4:30. We got back to the dorms around 5:15. Most days, I’d nap for 20 minutes, shower, or send out brief “yes, I’m still alive, but I can’t really write much now” emails before making the sticky 15-minute walk to the dining hall where I met the same sleepy-eyed friends from breakfast. We exchanged stories of successful or bombed lessons, and swapped alarming or endearing quotes from our students. After dinner, another 15 minutes back to the dorm, then I gathered my things to go to evening workshops. After the workshops, I met with my collaborative group to squabble over such matters as whether consequence #2 in our posted classroom rules should remain as is or be tweaked. This is where it was problematic to have 4 “born leaders” as TFA liked to call us. Shit like this ate up so much more time than it should have. I found myself being more agreeable than I have ever been in my life- just for the sake of wrapping up the meetings so I could get home to plan my own writing lessons for the coming days. I generally got to bed around 2-3am.

The part of Institute that struck me most (aside from my body’s amazing ability to continue functioning on such little rest) was the effect that my students had on me. Just a week into being their teacher for a mere hour and 45 minutes/day, I was already calling them “my kids,” instead of “my students.” I found myself thinking about them alllll the time. When one of my most dedicated students brought in a notarized note on letterhead from Family Court, excusing her absence from school because she had to appear in court as the witness of a violent crime, I didn’t know how to respond. I couldn’t find words at that moment, and it hasn’t escaped my mind since. Another student wrote an essay about wanting to rid her neighborhood of the rapists, explaining that the little neighbor girl had been kidnapped and raped, and she wanted it stopped. My daily bus ride through their neighborhood to get to the school was a sobering reminder of what they face outside of our classroom walls. I feel like I’m slipping into the voice of very cliché TFA literature, but my brief but intense experience in Philly, of really getting to know a small group of students, opened my eyes to their daily realities so much more than the past work I’ve done in DC. I learned a lot from that experience as well, and I in no way mean to understate its value, but this was a new level of real, a new depth of personal-ness. These kids were ‘mine’ for those 5 weeks, and I loved them and wished I could some how protect them from the parts of their world that they hated. In their essays various writings, they disclosed their fears, and they shared their hopes. My students were truly amazing, inspiring people, and I wish that I could have kept teaching them until I was editing their college essays. But I think that I did the best that I could in the little time that I had with them. Sure, I was fumbling my way through, trying to figure out how to become a teacher, and I absolutely have a lot to learn- but at some point during my fumbling, I think they learned a thing or two. Two of them even told me I was the best writing teacher they’d ever had. I know they had no idea how many goose bumps accompanied my smiling response.

Sorry. I didn’t mean to get so sappy and sentimental there. I just grew to really care a lot about those four kids who would have me crying one night and dancing in celebration of a stellar paragraph the next day. Sigh…. :)

So, now I’m back in NYC after my stint in Philly. I still don’t have an apartment, and I’m sorely lacking friends as well. I really miss Minnesota. I would give anything to sit in a canoe or boat on a quiet lake right now. I don’t like NYC yet. It’s always overcast and humid, and the constant noise is getting to me. I’ve come to understand that every day is trash day here, so you can never escape the stench emanating from the heaps of dark gray bags on every block. The traffic never quiets, and I feel dirty every time I step outside. The handful of friends that I made through TFA are home visiting their families or moving into their new apts. right now, and I envy them. (The rollercoaster of my tentative living arrangements could be a post in itself, but I don’t feel like recapping all of it.)

I spend most of my days reading education articles and teaching prep books, watching movies, and walking around the city. I am staying with my boyfriend until I find a place. He lives in Murray Hill, the land of frat boys and very little to do. If you walk north, you hit Midtown- tourists, and unbelievably rich people shopping. The kind of shopping that’s so expensive it makes me uncomfortable. (I had no idea I was such a Midwesterner!) Tomorrow I’ll walk south or west instead. :) I have the utmost confidence that I will grow to love New York. Once I’m settled. Once I have a home, an income, friends I hang out with regularly, and a job that’s occupying and challenging me. I know I’ll love being able to go to an occasional Broadway show. I’ll love being in the same city as my boyfriend, once I move out and we stop fighting over his smelly dishes and sprawling dirty laundry. I know that everything WILL come together and that it’s only a matter of time.

But for now, I’m still very much in transition mode, eager to make more friends, find more to do, and have some money to do it with. For the time being, I’ll continue flying through Nitin’s DVD collection, reading, and walking all over the city. So far, I’ve watched Good Will Hunting, Annie Hall, Zoolander, Office Space, Boondock Saints, Cable Guy, Royal Tennenbaums, and Old School… just to name a few. I tend to throw in flicks that I’ve already seen while I’m doing something else exciting like laundry or scouring craigslist for apartments. I will find out tomorrow if I get the apartment I want! It’s actually part housing project (Mom, Dad, stay calm, we’ll discuss later.) They reserve certain floors of the building for subsidized housing. It’s an awesome place… courtyard, workout facility, laundry in the building, doorman, everything…. It’s a one-bedroom that has a temporary wall up to make it a two-bedroom, and I’d be sharing with a random girl from craigslist. She seemed nice in my 20 minutes of meeting her, and the price is right. 8 minute walk from the subway, 12 minute walk from work. I’ll keep you posted!