Home Sweet Home South Dakota

Sunset behind the Rosbud Casino and Quality Inn. 25 exhausted but happy TFA corps members arrived back in South Dakota Sunday night after two looooooong days of driving from Houston. I don't think you could find another TFA corps more thrilled to be home. This place is beautiful/amazing/magical/otherworldly.

Yesterday I went to St. Francis where we found out that our trailers are not actually here yet, nor have they actually secured them yet. They are supposed to be getting unused or unneeded FEMA trailers leftover from Katrina, but apparently lots of other people want them as well, so we'll see. What they do have at St. Francis is a BRAND NEW high school building which we got to go inside and it was so exciting! I actually had goosebumps looking in at a classrooom that could be mine in the fall and seeing myself in front of that white board delivering excellent lessons. There is so much potential in that building, so much learning and growing that can happen in there. It's going to be a great two years. Today we started our sessions which we'll continue tomorrow and Thursday. The orientation sessions here really focus on creating a vision for our class and setting goals and planning the first few weeks. Reading the South Dakota 9th grade English standards makes me a little bit giddy. I kind of love English :) I have so many ideas and thoughts on what we could do in that classroom with those standards--projects and books and essays and presentations oh my! so much fun and yet so terrifying and overwhelming because now I have to actually decide what we're going to do and how and what my students are going to come out of my class with at the end of the year. Wow. Me. I have to do that. My students' learning in my classroom is all up to me now. I can't even express how happy I am to be here doing this right now or how enormous this challenge is or how happy/scared I am to be taking it on.

More goal setting and unit planning to come...

AND- Three days to Minnesota!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Institute Week Four

I think I've finally hit my institute stride. Five step lesson plans seem to flow forth from my fingers effortlessly, I feel perky after six hours of sleep, and Houston is definitely growing on me. Too bad there's only one week left :-P

Here are some highlights of this week:
On the 4th (after a morning of sessions and an afternoon of lesson planning) some of us went downtown to watch the firework show. It was a great show and even greater to get out of Moody towers and see real people in the city. And I'm glad I got to see some fireworks on the fourth, sometimes I forget that it's actually summertime here.

Your teachers were never this cool. My CMA group threw a mini dance party at school Friday afternoon to break it down with a little Cupid Shuffle. (It was also college shirt day- we don't usually get to dress like this!)Friday night Kereoke bar extravaganza. Need I say more?

And finally, today the SoDak corps took a trip to the beach in Galvestan. It was possibly one of the ugliest beaches I've ever seen, but still a beach and a totally fun day.

Also today I bought a really truly authentic pair of Texas Cowgirl boots and I'm about to go break 'em in with some two steppin'. Texas does have it's strong points :)

Week 2: Good Morning Miss S

This is what teachers look like in their spare time.

I'm a teacher!! This was our first full week of being in the classroom. It's crazy, fun, and incredibly hard. I've never experienced anything close to the intense and challenging environment here. We're all running on just a few hours of sleep a night trying to absorb huge amounts of information and immediately apply it in out classrooms. Most days go something like this:
5:30am- wake up
6:45- bus to school leaves
7:20-8 - morning duty in the hallway
8:55-9:50- teach the second half of ninth grade English class
10-4pm- go to various session on classroom management, diversity, lesson planning, literacy, etc.
4- bus leaves school
4:30-6ish- dinner/destress
6ish- get together with collaborative teaching partner to plan lessons, make copies, find resources, grade papers, write tests, etc. Sometimes interspersed with more sessions.
Sometime between 11pm and 2am- finally get to sleep

Let me tell you, it is exhausting, physically, mentally and emotionally. Some days it feels like everyone is so tense and on edge they could explode at any moment and sometimes do. The TFA "sense of urgency" is usually bordering on panic. They pretend to be ultra organized and tell us how we should be managing our time, but really everything is kind of a mess and none of the staff are getting any more sleep than we are. I know that this will somehow all be worth it in the end. There are a lot of things I absolutely hate about having every 5 minutes of my time structured for me and there have been more than a couple times I've wanted to scream/cry/punch someone, but I can't really imagine how else they could prepare us to be teachers in only 5 weeks.

The part of it that is really fun, however, is actually teaching. That 50 min in the classroom with my kids is always my high of the day, that and reading what they wrote later on. I have a long long way to go in being a better teacher and writing more effective lessons, but I feel like it's going ok and at the very least they may have absorbed something and we aren't wasting our days. This week we practiced main idea and supporting details in paragraphs and they wrote paragraphs for a job application. Then we talked about conflict in literature and read a story called "Lather and Nothing Else" which they got pretty into. Going through and analyzing the text with them is absolutely my thing, I feel so myself and exhilarated. It feels so natural to gradually draw the right answers out of them by asking the right questions and see the look in their faces when they get it and start thinking about it and realize how much meaning there is in every line of the story.
It's all about the kids! They're so smart, it makes me sad that they have to be in summer school because they had too many absences or tardies or they didn't do their work or whatever last year. These kids should not be failing and I hope that I'll be able to pass them all. The grading is actually entirely up to us- I am responsible for 20 kids passing 9th grade English this summer. eek! Next week we're going to try to talk to each student individually, I really really hope we can get them all invested in working hard in our class so they can pass because they are absolutely too smart and talented not too. After we grade their journals tonight I'll post some of the more touching/funny things they've written!

I cannot wait to get to South Dakota and have my own class. I wish I could just leave now! I really do miss South Dakota. The weather here is abysmal and I'm not to crazy about the city, but I will spare any Houstonians out there reading this and avoid elaborating. Granted I've seen very little of the city outside moody towers and my school. And the giant armadillo (you'll have to check out my flickr pics to see it!) I know I was only in SD for a week, but I'm already a little homesick for it! It's going to be a pretty amazing two years.

Institute: Week One

But first a flashback to pre-institute: At my interview last Thursday I found out that I will be teaching 9th grade English. Woo! Pretty pumped. The administrators and teacher I met were very nice and seemed happy to have us coming in, they have extremely high turnover, there's been three 9th grade English teachers in the last two years. But they seemed pretty positive and are working on a lot of programs to improve student achievement. Oh, and, I will in fact be living on a trailer on school property. Awesome.

Friday we packed up a few cars and started down the long road to Houston. Stop 1 was Witchita where some people had to take the Praxis test. Stop 2 was Denton, TX where were did some serious birthday partying as seen here.

Sunday we finally made it to lovely Moody Towers at the University of Houston (the two grey towers at the forefront of the picture) which we now call home along with the other 750 corps members here.

The registration process was pretty indicative of what was to come, we were whipped around several stations picking up and signing things while staff actually timed us and kept track of their registration room efficiency. Efficiency is the name of the game around here. Monday my bus to get to the school I'll be working at this summer left at 6:35 a.m. as it does every day. The first week has been very tough adjusting to TFA culture. We're kept on a super tight schedule with lots of rules and limits as they try to instill us with a sense of urgency to learn as much as possible while we're here so we can be effective in the classroom. It's pretty insane. The super structuredness definitely rubs me the wrong way, but I'm beginning to see the necessity of it. Week One is all sessions on things like lesson planning and classroom management. Week Two we start actually teaching kids in summer school. Ah! I'm teaching 9th grade English which works out well. I'll be splitting the 105min block into two periods with my collaborative partner. Our first lesson is on main ideas and supporting details. I still have a lot a lot of work to do preparing it. Teaching real stuff is way harder than the random fun lessons about cowboys that I got to teach in Germany. But I'm excited about the challenge and looking forward to really diving in and pushing myself. It's excited to be with 750 other people doing the same thing because they feel so passionately about reforming education and closing the gap. Pretty inspiring.

Last night I got eight hours of sleep for the first time in a long time and now I'm going to finish my laundry, iron some stuff that has been wrinkly since leaving DC and then get to work on some main ideas and supporting details.

Made it!

I'm not quite together enough to get any pictures us right now, but I will say it's beautiful out here! Like no other landscape I could ever imagine. Hills and plateaus and grassland with sage growing all over and cows and horses and the endless sky! You just have to see it, it's amazing, like breathing for the first time.

I'm currently at the Rosebud Casino Quality Inn 20 miles south of Mission, SD and 10 miles north of Valentine, NE, literally a matter of yards from the state line. There are 26 of us new TFA people here and we have had a very warm welcome. This week is "induction" and we have a very structured schedule filled with lectures and visits from various tribal leaders, professors and school administrators all of whom have been very warm and very inspiring. Their culture is so rich and deep, I feel honored to be here and learn about it and be a part of it for a while. We are also occasionally driven around in two large vans to see some of the cultural sights. Tonight we ate Indian Tacos and had a performance from a drum and dancing group and even did a bit of dancing ourselves, part of which involved potatoes. Tomorrow we're off the the Pine Ridge reservation and I can't wait to see the Badlands!! We'll also be visiting a resort ranch which should be cool. It's almost like I'm finally fulfilling my childhood dreams of becoming a cowgirl. Last night we went out to a bar in Valentine. There was pool and darts and a game called shuffleboard (not the old people kind) and lots of country music. It was fantastic! I will not at all miss the trendy/preppy DC bars. This is real life, I'm going to need a new pair of cowgirl boots :)

On Thursday I'll be interviewing for an English High School teacher position at St. Francis High School on the Rosebud reservation, so that's most likely where I'll end up. Woo hoo! I'm super excited and pumped about this whole adventure and my next two years here and all of the challenges I'll face and the good things that I will see and do.

I am also incredibly exhausted and can hardly believe that I'm still as chipper as I am right now, but I'm pishing through. I feel like I've done this whole orientations meeting new people thing so many times I'm kind of an expert ;) The other corps members are some pretty great people and I'm looking forward to getting past these first few awkward days and weeks of 'getting to know you' questions and building real friendships.

Letter of Intent

The following is my letter of intent written to Teach for America:

During my year as a Fulbright Teaching Assistant in Germany I learned that a country’s education system is not only closely intertwined with its culture, but also a reflection of its values.

I was placed in two high schools in an affluent suburb of Munich, one of the wealthiest cities in Germany. Later in the year I had the opportunity to visit a school in a small and economically struggling East German town. After a day of visiting classes there, it was clear that they had access to the same technology, their buildings were equally as up-to-date, and their teachers were equally as qualified as at my schools. The German education system is far from perfect; they struggle with many of the same issues we do in America, including integrating their growing immigrant population. But I saw that German children, regardless of their geographical location, had access to the same educational resources and were expected to meet the same academic standards.* Germans recognize that this equality is necessary in order to move toward a better and more unified nation. This experience made me wonder; what would an outsider think of American values if they were to visit a public school in a poor rural town or inner city? I hardly think that the American public school system portrays the values of freedom, equality, and inclusiveness we pride ourselves on.

I want to join Teach for America because I want our schools to be proof that we are a nation that values all our children, not just a privileged few, and recognizes that they will all play a part in the future of our country. I want to be one of many Americans to reach out and tell those children who have been ignored that they are important to us, to America, and to the world. I believe that I can begin to accomplish that in my two years as a corps member by setting high expectations for the kids in my classroom and working hard to provide them with the support and knowledge they need to reach those expectations.

Teaching abroad and returning to work for an education association has taught me a great deal about myself and my strengths and interests. I am passionate about education and plan to pursue a higher degree in a related field, but before I continue my studies I want to see first hand the impact that I can have on one school and one group of students. My experience in a classroom will make me more aware the issues that require the most attention and that I will be most able to impact in my future. German school children taught me more about German culture than I could have imagined and I believe that American school children will inspire and motivate me to take an active role in shaping the future values of America.

*Obviously this is an oversimplified comparison, a 250 word essay does not allow space for a discussion of the complex pros and cons of the German school system (This article discussed some of the major problems they are facing especially with immigrants.). My comparison is based only on the Gymnasiums (highest track college preparatory public high schools) that I saw in Munich and Greifswald. Money is spread equally among schools within each German state. Teachers are likewise assigned placements by the state. This means that there is very little disparity between same-track schools in different areas of Germany. Of course this equality cannot make up for the discrimination that exists in the tracking process , I discussed this issue in this post. (In that previous post I wrote that placement was determined based on grades and tests, I learned that that is is not entirely true, the ultimate decision on tracking is made by the parents with recommendations by teachers.)

Announcement: Next Big Adventure!

At some point in the last months the adventures of me turned into something not so adventurous and more sedintary and my brain became filled with less witty observations and insightful commentaries and more whining about how boring it is to sit in a cubicle and push paper all day. And thus the blogging tapered off into nothingness. This development, among other factors, was an indication to me that my life was due for a new twist. Luckily for you I am not the type sit around and wait for things to happen. SO- In January I submitted the online portion of the Teach for America application... Three months and a few interviews later I've accepted a position as a Secondary English Teacher in South Dakota on the Pine Ridge or Rosebud Indian Reservation beginning fall 2007. :-D

A few other fun things happened in those months, a successful Holiday House Party on T Street, Christmas at home, a fun trip to Boston and a buisness trip to Kalamazoo (Yes! There really is a Kalamazoo), many more nights out in Georgetown, a visit to my Senators' offices on Capitol Hill, and more recently finally getting around to some DC touristy things (See pictures in Flickr account over there --->). But the long and short of it is that even though I work for a great organization, really like my coworkers, and fully believe in our mission and values, big city 9-5 office life just is just not my thing, at least not right now. I may one day return to work in an office for an organization I care about, but hopefully it won't be until I'm actually high up enough to have an office-- cubicles are just not good for anyone.

In the mean time-- Westward Ho!! I'm ready for some Wide Open Spaces :)

The time line looks something like this:
April- mid May:
Continue plugging along in my cubicle
Take Praxis II teachers test
Read massive quantities of TfA pre-reading
Find someone to take my room, my job, and my bike
Pack all material possessions into my car
May 24th-ish: Drive to Minneapolis
May 26-June 1: NAFSA 2007 Annual Conference and Expo in Minneapolis MN - We need temps if you're interested!
June 3 - June 8: Drive to South Dakota for induction
June 8-10 ish: Drive to Houston
June 10- July 14: TfA Institute in Houston
July 14- Early August: Hang out at the lake in MN
Mid August: Move to South Dakota
Late August: Be a real teacher!



Further updates and reflections are coming soon. Renewed blogging activity is obviously a must, but right now I should be working! Ciao