Making a run for it

Running used to be really important to me. In fact, it still is, but Teacher Corps has done its damnedest to keep the two of us apart. Any running I have gotten in has been very inconsistent, a sure path to injury, but that's an entirely different story. However, last night I decided to head out for a midnight run right before bed, and honestly, few things in recent memory have felt so good. Not only that, but today was an entirely stellar day. I'm not saying the two are actually related, but there just might be a bit of a direct correlation between going for a run and having an awesome day. I completely knocked my shit out of the park today. I scored one point short of flawless on my formal evaluation today, and nearly perfect, if not perfectly perfect, on all three of my role plays.

That being said, here's how I see it. I'm already used to being unbelievably sleep deprived and I'm definitely no stranger to feeling endlessly exhausted, so I'm thinking that skipping out on another half hour of sleep each night isn't really going to make a big difference in the end. As of right now my plan is to try running before bed, regardless of how late it is, and I'm pretty sure I'm actually going to feel better for doing it.

I just got back from going for a run, and I'm hoping to be as successful tomorrow as I was today. But even if that isn't the case, at the very least I'll be feeling relaxed when my head hits the pillow, and that's huge these days. Running might just be even more relaxing than popsicles.

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A welcomed break from 90 and humid

Yesterday it was cold, relatively of course, and rainy. Most would agree that such weather conditions aren't exactly favorable. In fact, to everyone's great disappointment, the weather caused the early cancelation of our big volleyball tournament, but aside from the forced change in afternoon plans, I really enjoyed the cool rain. Usually when we get a summer rain here, the rain comes down warm, sometimes even hot, and only lasts for brief periods of time. It ends just as quickly as it starts, and the immediate evaporation of the fallen precipitation increases the humidity to a level you wouldn't believe. But yesterday was different; instead of feeling like Mississippi, it felt like being home.

I went for a walk, and I didn't mind the skies doing their best to drench me. I ignored those familiar chills of being wet when the wind picks up, and I paid no mind to the uncomfortable feeling of clinging clothing. Standing outside, feeling cold and wet, something I thought I had come to loathe, had somehow managed to become inseparably linked with feelings of home.

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From teacher wannabe to teacher

Ann Monroe Assignment: Read The Reluctant Disciplinarian and write a reaction.

Gary Rubinstein's The Reluctant Disciplinarian is an anecdotal account of the author's transformation from a shaky first year teacher, incapable of managing a classroom, to a teacher with five years of experience and enough tricks up his sleeve that classroom control looks almost effortless. I found The Reluctant Disciplinarian to be a really great read. It was short, quick, and oftentimes funny. Several of its pages had me on the edge of laughing out loud.

But although I thoroughly enjoyed reading Gary Rubinstein's account, it was just that. The book points out that finding ones teacher persona is a very personal journey, and its pages lay out the path that the author had taken. Knowing how the author went from inexperienced first year teacher to real teacher doesn't help me to get there any quicker. Although it was mostly about the author's journey, solid, noteworthy advice was definitely integrated throughout.

Amusingly, a lot of the advice Gary Rubinstein gives was reiterated in Delta Autumn, so I guess I'm not the only one that felt that there was something to be taken away from The Reluctant Disciplinarian. When I start teaching on my own in August, I'll be sure to look the part of a teacher, dressed my best and appearing to be well organized, and I'm going to make a point of it to be instantly decisive, no matter what the question or situation.

Despite the fact that the author was one of the enemy, a Teach for America participant, I enjoyed reading the book. In all seriousness though, I don't hate TFA; it's just not as cool as Mississippi Teacher Corps. 

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Questioning Strategies

Ann Monroe Assignment: Try a new questioning strategy and write about how well it worked.

I'm a big time procrastinator, so last Friday, when we were given the assignment to try a new questioning technique this week, I was thinking that I would totally get it done… eventually. Wednesday rolled around, the week quickly drawing to a close, and I still hadn't done anything. Not only had I not tried something yet, but by  the time I got home from school on Wednesday I had once again forgotten all about it. Thursday morning came, and as I was walking into school I realized that it was just about my last time to try cold calling, the technique I most wanted wanted to try. But as you can probably guess, it wasn't in my lesson plan and that meant it wasn't going to be happening. On Friday I was doing a review game, so without the opportunity to try cold calling, I had to try the muddiest part of the lecture technique. At the beginning of the period, I told everyone to write down anything that we had covered this week that they were still confused about and that if we had time after the game we would start to go over some of it, and if not, I would cover it all before the final. I didn't get a chance to reteach any of the things they were confused about, but my review did cover everything on the test and I definitely learned something from trying the new technique.

My fear was that I would get twenty-five different responses as to what the students were confused about since everyone learns and absorbs information differently. To my surprise, there were only a few topics that had eluded them, a collection small enough in size that it could be retaught in probably less than twenty minutes. I guess that's assuming though that they didn't underrepresent what they were confused about. In the future I'll stress that they shouldn't put their name on it, so that hopefully the anonymity will ensure a student doesn't purposefully not write something to avoid embarrassment. Despite the fact that I waited until the absolute last minute and even though I didn't use the method I was most excited to try, I still learned a couple things from the whole experience and I'm most likely going to try the technique again. I may even try cold calling, despite the fact that it's no longer required. 

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Let's go round two

Sleepless nights, a level of stress I've never experienced before, and countless hours spent lesson planning have been validated by my successful completion of two weeks of summer school. I'm only eleven lessons in, but already I feel like my teaching is worlds better than what it was on my first day. I no longer have a problem standing in front of a classroom, and putting together my lesson plans has gone from taking five hours to taking only about two or three.

Despite all the improvement and the daily boosts in confidence, it's still way harder than I ever would have expected. As first years, we are told time and time again, "All of you have gone your whole lives without trying very hard or failing, but teacher corps will change that." I wouldn't exactly say I'm struggling, at least not yet, but I'm completely in awe of how much time goes into teaching.

College was easy. I knew I would do well, so I never put a whole lot of effort into school work or studying. Any challenge I have ever been presented with has either been time consuming or difficult. Sometimes a task is challenging because you have to keep on trucking despite lengthy stretches of monotony; other times a task is challenging because it requires superb problem solving skills and creativity. Teacher corps though is the only challenge I've ever come across that involves both a huge time commitment and higher level thinking. I spend hours each night writing lesson plans. I try to come up with creative ways to present my subject, but more often than not, I fail at it. There's no arguing it, teacher corps is hard, harder than anything else I've done before.

The first two weeks of summer school have been filled with accomplishments and improvements, but also frustration. It's frustrating to spend so much time on something and still end up disappointed with it. I'm getting better though, and as long as I remember that, it's not difficult to stay motivated. As for avoiding exhaustion, that's impossible.

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The importance of routines and procedures

Ben Guest Assignment: Free write.

A fair amount of the advice we have been given has been prefaced with, "The most important thing you need to know is…" We've been given a lot of advice, so that adds up to quite a few most important things we're supposed to remember. Depending on who you're talking to, we're told that the most important thing is to use rewards and consequences, establish authority, have a good folder system, and rely on well practiced routines and procedures.  The lattermost has proven to be of notable significance.

When someone tells you that not having your students practice passing their papers forward is a sure path to anarchy, it's hard to believe at first. But as it turns out, even at the high school level, students need directions on how to do just about everything. "Have your students pass their papers to the side. Passing form the front to the back may lead to confrontation if someone is not paying attention." "Clearly state how you expect homework to be turned in, so students don't get up in the middle of class." "Explain your bathroom policy to avoid requests at inopportune times."

I feel bad that in a lot of ways we treat our students like prisoners, but the more control that is imposed, the less there is to go wrong, at least that's the going theory. In a school that functions properly, it is unnecessary, but that is not the case here and no one knows how to turn it around. Whether you agree with it or not, strict management of routines and procedures has proven its place in academia, at least in Mississippi. And not only are well established routines important within the classroom, they are also essential beyond the school walls.

Everyday I get home from summer school, and after eating lunch, I get down on a popsicle. For the few minutes that it takes me to eat that popsicle, I completely forget about all the stress of summer school and lesson planning. I have now come to associate those artificial flavors with pure bliss, a deep, almost meditative, relaxation. My afternoon popsicle has become a daily routine that I won't soon be parting with.

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A guide for first-year teachers

Ann Monroe Assignment: Read Delta Autumn and write a reaction.

Delta Autumn is a guide to teaching in the Mississippi Delta. What sets it apart from other books on teaching strategies is not just the fact that it contains regionally specific information, but that it was actually written by past Mississippi Teacher Corps participants. The authors basically compiled an elaborate list of everything they wish they had known before introducing themselves to a classroom of students for the very first time.

Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed reading Delta Autumn. But although there were a lot of gems contained within its pages, such as having students write poems on what they did wrong as a punishment, something I will definitely be adding to my repertoire of consequences, I felt that the majority of its advice wouldn't be relevant until I was actually experiencing what the authors had been experiencing. I feel like teaching is very much a learn through doing profession, and that no amount of reading can ever prepare you for what's to come. I thought it was great that the book had been written by past participants, but at the same time, I question how much better off I'll be on my first day for having read it.

Easily, I thought the best part of Delta Autumn was the history of education in the Mississippi Delta presented at the beginning of the book. Even if you're not into history, which I'm usually not, Mississippi has a rich history worth looking into. Opposition to the integration of schools manifested itself in the forms of everything from the disbanding of the public school system to armed riots. It's bewildering that ignorance has played such a huge role in the areas history, and completely dumbfounding that all of this took place relatively recently.

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Almost, kinda, sorta a teacher

As soon as I had finished my very first lesson, my initial thought was that I had officially become a teacher. But the thought left just as quickly as it had arrived, and I began to question whether or not there was any truth to it. Since I don't have my certification yet, I definitely wasn't a teacher in the technical sense, but more importantly I just wasn't a teacher. A teacher is someone who commands authority, someone who captivates an entire room, someone who actually knows what they're doing at the front of a classroom. I am none of these things. I impersonated a teacher today, and yes, many of my students were fooled. Most of them left having learned something new, and in the end that is the primary goal of what we're trying to do. But not everyone was fooled; I definitely wasn't.

I know that no one ever performs a task perfectly the first time around, and I wasn't trying to say that my lesson went exceedingly poorly either. I think things went really well actually, all things considered of course. I'm pretty sure the point I was getting at was that there is always another, more distant goal to pursue. Even those who are great can still find areas to improve. Sure, celebrate the victories along the way, but it's important to keep in mind that there's even more to come. I taught my first lesson today and if I look past the stress and anxiety, it was pretty awesome. But by the end of the summer I'm hoping that I'll actually be a teacher.

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Week one draws to a close

Ben Guest Assignment: Write about your first week in the Mississippi Teacher Corps

This past week has been a whirlwind of introductions and new information, and that is to say the least. Over move in weekend I got to meet about half of our class, and by Tuesday morning, our first day, I had met them all. Whether we wanted it or not, from that moment forward we were bound together by the rigorous schedule imposed on us by the Google Calendar. It was meeting after meeting, and introduction after introduction. I'm pretty sure I've met more people this past week than I have in the past year.

Aside from being introduced to both the rest of my classmates and to the key administrative players of the program, I became certified in CPR, planned a curriculum map before I knew what one was, and received my first couple of lectures on what goes into being a teacher. Everything thrown at us over the course of this past week was designed to both orient us to the program and prepare us for the arduous journey ahead. Do I feel prepared? No, definitely not to the extent that I would like to be. But am I looking forward to what's to come? Absolutely. From what I've heard from all of the second years in the program I've spoken with, everyone feels at least a little overwhelmed and unsure of what they're doing in the beginning, but by the end of it, it all comes together.

Even this early on in the program I can already see that everything will inevitably fall into place. A week ago I had no idea what went into writing a proper lesson plan, but now I've already written my first one. I'm not saying that it's great or anything, not by any means, but it is complete and there are a number of people willing to critique it for me to make it better. That might be the best part of the program so far, the fact that no matter how difficult things get, there is always someone you can go to for help.

The core of this program is preparation for teaching in a critical needs school and that of course is extremely laborious, but that's not to say that there's no time for fun and games. This past week has also been filled with great times had with great people. I have spent way too much money on going out for dinner, but it was worth it since it facilitated the formation of some awesome friendships. Our first weekend has consisted of volleyball and late nights spent outside. We've only known each other for a week, but in a lot of ways it seems much longer. I'm definitely looking forward to what our second week will have in store.

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An exercise in flexibility

One of the many things Mississippi Teacher Corps likes to stress to its incoming recruits is the necessity of the ability to remain flexible. Only two days into the program, and we were already being tested on whether or not we had the required skill. Our evaluation was not at all related to teaching, but instead it came in the form of us handling the complications brought on by our first group outing.

Organizing dinner is not what anyone would call the hardest task, but doing so with almost forty people presents a whole new set of potential problems. Remarkably, things went off without a hitch on our end. We all arrived to the restaurant on time, and we even managed to carpool well enough so that the small capacity of the parking lot was not overrun. It was actually the wait staff at the restaurant we went to that fell apart. Mistakes were made and orders were lost, resulting in half of us waiting nearly two hours for our food and a handful of people receiving their food long after everyone else had already finished. The food was good, but certainly not good enough to make up for such an extreme delay. We were surrounded by great people though, so we still managed to have an awesome time and we were able to demonstrate a small scope of our flexibility.

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