Placement:

On Friday I found out I was going to be teaching in North Philadelphia (which was NOT a surprise as it is the "rough" side of town) at a local elementary school. Here in Philadelphia they are slowly getting rid of Middle Schools and turning Elementary Schools into k-8, but making them smaller and more community like.

Today I meet the principle and the staff. The Elementary School is k-6 and it currently has 410 students. I found out I will be doing Learning Support/Emotional Support 4-6 grade for Special Ed. I will have about 8-10 students (right now it's 8 boys) and they are all LS and ES. I know that this is where I am needed and I am excited. It was hard hearing the staff tell me that NO teacher has stayed there longer then a year, that my students are uncontrollable and one teacher even went far enough to say that they were going to eat me alive (those are my nice words for what she said). From these short conversations I soon found out who were the positive teachers and whom were not. After that all went down a young lady named Caitlin pulled me aside and informed me that she was TEACH FOR AMERICA 03 (The Charter year) and we had a huge looong conversation and I left feeling extremely better. I felt better because she knew my training and how I will go about approaching the class. Don't get me wrong there is A LOT of work ahead of me, I am excited to have Caitlin there, I am also excited that TFA thought I would be the best person for this job and that I am going to be able to build an outstanding relationship with this school and get other TFA folks in there next year.

Here is a little about North Philadelphia

North Philadelphia is located just north of Center City, along Broad Street, and includes Fairmount, Hunting Park, Spring Garden, Strawberry Mansion and West Kensington. Also home to Temple University, North Philly is an area full of students, young families and a community rich in history and tradition, particularly Philadelphia's civil rights struggle in the '60s. A diverse group of ethnicities live in the area and the impact is reflected in bars, restaurants, shops and local culture. New homes and rental units are currently in development around the area, attracting a mix of low-income residents and middle-class families.

Philadelphia Neighborhoods:

The city of Philadelphia has welcomed me with open arms. Before arriving, I had always heard Philadelphia describe in relation to other cities, whether it was "New York Light" or "Big Pittsburgh". As it turns out, Philadelphia effortlessly accomplishes having more character and identity than any other city I have known. Each neighborhood has its own vibe, but all of them are welcoming. The city is hip while unpretentious, daunting yet quaint, an the pride of Philadelphia is contagious.

The main neighborhoods in Philadelphia are University City/West Philly, Center City, Art Museum Area, Old City, Antique Row, North Philly, Olney, Oak Lane, Germantown, Manayunk, High society, Queens, and South Philly! As I said before each neighborhood has its own vibe and it is fantastic having us all spread out across Philly, so we can get the "favor" of each neighborhood. A good majority of us live in High Society, Queens and South (or Irish Town) Philly which are all in walking distance of each other.

I moved to South Philly three weeks ago. I live in a row house (three stories and a basement) with two girls an a guy. The neighborhood is NOT lacking character and from the outside you might think it looks a bit rough, but the people here are great and have welcomed us with open arms. What I love about South Philly is that I walk everywhere! I walk to the Italian Market to get fresh veggies, fruits and meats. I walk to South Street (with is like 6 street in Austin) which is an ecliptic street with little boutiques, restaurants, pubs and bars. And I walk to the subway. The only time I really drive my car is to work and if I am going out of the city. I love it!!!

Institute-

So what have I been doing since June 19th? On June 19th I boarded an airplane for Philadelphia for what six weeks of rigorous and intense training with Teach For America. The first week was actually induction (which was NOT intense) and ALL 149 of us meet and stayed at the Embassy Suites in Downtown Philly. It was a week of classes from 9:00-4:00, with social gatherings with our TTL (Transition Team Leadership Groups) and other various groups in the evening. It was an overwhelming but enjoyable time of getting to know one another and I felt a sense of relief (as I was 1 of 20 chosen to come up for a May 20th weekend) when I walked into the hotel lobby that cool Monday afternoon and heard "Looks like TROUBLE just entered the room!"

During that week and over the next five weeks a sense of family and community formed like I have never experienced. The age range (22-45), political views, religious views, up bringing, social economical statues and schooling are all extremely vast but when you walk into that room and saw us all together, you would never know. You would never know because we are all here for one reason, the reason being to close the gap on educational equality in this Nation.

On Sunday June 25th we left for Temple (up the road in a NOT so good section of town) and joined the Chicago, DC, Newark, Camden, Baltimore, and Connecticut Teams bringing us to 550 TFA's in training. This is where the rubber meets the road, this is where you found out why you were chosen out of 16,000 people that applied for this job and this is where you find out if you can cut it or not. In just five short weeks I had to learn how to become a bad ass inner city teacher! This involved me teaching in a collaborative (with two other teachers), going to classes in the afternoon and in the evening and thousands of other things.

An average day started at 5am. I was at my school at 7am (had an hour to prep for the day), I was in the yard at 745am (picking up my 18 students), I was doing free breakfast 8-830 (all my students had free breakfast, lunch and dinner), I was teaching 845-1130am, I was in class (at the school) or observing from 1130-400pm, I had free time 4-7 (that included driving back to temple, working out, eating dinner and anything else), I had class from 7-9pm and then meetings, workshops, prep work and lessons plans all took place anywhere from 9-2am. With an average night sleep ranging from 5-3 hrs. Then I would start the day all over again.

Life was intense. By Friday at 5pm you were either hitting up Happy Hour with fellow coworkers or trying to stay awake at dinner in the dining hall. Saturdays and Sundays were our "Days Off" but most days we worked relentlessly through the day and went out at night for a breather.

I had the pleasure of teaching 18 2nd graders (going into third grade in the fall) this summer. The first day of school I gave them all diagnostics and then had the unbelievable heart ache of finding out that all my students performed only at the 20% mark, knowing that our BIG GOAL this summer was to achieve 80% mastery in all subjects (Reading, Writing and Math). I also find out that over half of my class was on IEP'S (Individual Education Plans-Special ED) and that in Philadelphia a student can NOT fail or be retained as long as they meet their IEP goals, which are so low that they will never not meet them. This lit a fire in me as it overwhelmingly hit to close to home. At that moment as I was staring at my students diagnostics and IEP'S and realizing that most of my students CAN'T read or write, I knew why I was chosen for Teach For America. To make a long story short I knew I had to invest my students from the get go. I think I might have done that because my students kicked ass this summer! No they did not get 80% mastery on anything, but they did get 69% to 70% on everything! Not only that they surprised the hell out of the principle with perfect attendance all summer!! My principal and I went around in circles this summer about being able to "push" students with learning disabilities, but at the end of the summer...I got "Well done Lagos, well done" and thats all I need to hear.

I don't think I can articulate all the emotions and experiences that have taken place over the last two months, even if I wanted to. Institute lit a fire in me that has been buring for sometime, so much that I changed what I will be teaching in the fall. I had been placed to teach Elementary Ed, but after this summer and seeing how messed up the Special Education System is, I am now teaching Special Ed-most likely 6-12th.

I have become the "GO TO PERSON" For Special Education among the 06 Corps, this is why: One way we really got to know everyone was by doing a Life Map Walk with the whole Philly Core. The Life Map Walk was anything you really wanted to share from birth to now that brought you to TFA. Of course this was split into several days. I was toward the end of the sharing process and as time went on I felt less and less comfortable sharing. The reason being, I am surrounded with people that went to Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Dartmouth, Cornell, Duke, MIT, Notre Dame, GW, NYU, Penn State, OHIO State, Johns Hopkins, UCLA and so on. For a moment I forgot we were all on the same page and was embarrassed of the struggles and mountains I faced in life, for getting that they all turned into success and shaped me into the person that I am today. So my turn came around. I shared my Life Map. I shared about my HUGE MOUNTAINS with school, my learning disabilities, and the journey from 1st grade to today. I shared about how we should all have HIGH EXPECTATIONS for our SP ED students and that I am here today because I had people hold me to such expectations in my life. I was nervous and scared. I didn't know how people were going to react, what I didn't expect was everyone standing up clapping and what seemed like thousands of questions there after........and how quickly become the "go to" person for special ed questions.

Institute ended on July 28th.

Teach For America

I thought I start out by letting everyone know about my new job with Teach For America.

Teach for America is a nonprofit organization whose vision is that "one day, all children in our nation will have the opportunity to attain an excellent education". Its goal is to provide a corps of excellent teachers for inner-city and rural areas where chronic teacher shortages occur, helping to close the achievement gap afflicting low-income and minority students in urban and rural public schools. Teach For America has been around for 15 years and is currently in 22 regions (expanding new sites every year) across the United States. TFA teachers are committed to two years of service to disadvantaged communities. The hope is that these personal experiences will motivate young leaders to either continue in education careers or to become strong advocates for education reform in the business and public sectors. This year a little over 19,000 candidates applied and only 3, 300 were hired.

Making this decision to apply to Teach For America was definitely just the first step! I had to make it through TFA's rigorous application process-which started in August 2005 and continued into late November. Right before Christmas I find out I had been accepted into the Teach For America program and mid Januraray I received my letter of acceptance, and my regional placement, Philadelphia-"The City Of Brotherly LOVE".

Here it goes:

Many people have suggested that I start blogging as a way of journaling about my experiences over the next several years with Teach For America and as a way to stay in touch with all of you. Time finally allows, so I thought I would give it a try. Here goes to blogging...