Inner City LIFE

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

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.

2 Comments:

Blogger Brent said...

Really good blog, Nicole! And, for what it's worth, I'm truly proud of you and have seen you grow in Him and into your own over these last 9 years.

By His grace you are rapidly stepping into who you were CREATED to be...

...and that is wonderful to watch.

6:28 PM  
Blogger Nikki said...

THANKS Brent, that means a lot!

8:26 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home