We Will Be Teachers

Tuesday – July 5^th

Evening

The clock read 5:01 PM Eastern Standard Time as a host of young, professionally dressed teachers returned from their first day on the job, enduring patiently in an undersized school bus. The vehicle was certainly not designed to comfortably seat 50 full-grown adults and their briefcases crammed under seats, nor was the ventilation system of the half-cracked windows much match for a mid-summer sun, piercing the glass, amplifying the heat, looking down on the express way below. “Express” way. But, in a noble defiance to this unpleasantness, or perhaps an honest oblivion, a majority of the bus passengers grinned happily, engaging in conversations with one another. The rest slept.

So today, it’s official. I am a teacher. Currently, I’m sitting in the 6^th row of a bright yellow school bus, packed to capacity with Teach for America corps members reflecting on my day in its entirety. My tie was long ago loosened and sleeves rolled up; I wear these with a modest smile. In short, things went well – or at least as well as a first day as a teacher can go I suppose.

Exhausted and descending the steep steps of the carrier, the corps of freshly inducted educators was greeted by a crowd of supporters, blasting music by the Jackson 5, cheering with their shouts, pom-poms and bubble makers. It was a welcome celebration, although probably a bit premature. Nonetheless, we’d made it through the first day.

I am now back in my dorm room, taking a quick breath of fresh air before diving headfirst back into lesson planning. It feels pretty good.

Morning

This morning I woke up at 5:15 – I was one of the later risers. After the standard morning breakfast of pastries, bagels, hard-boiled eggs, juice, coffee and cereal, we departed for our schools. I was a bit tired, having crammed some last minute changes into our group’s management plan (determining incentives / disincentives for positive / negative behavior) and taking care of additional lesson plans for later this week. Regardless, my excitement brought me through the day, to this minute, more than 12 hours later.

After arriving, we met our students - both of them. After a few moments of an awkward 2:4 student teacher ratio, their lagging classmates slowly began to fill up the room. In the end, we had approximately 10 students altogether. We are expecting to have 16, but will see what happens - apparently not everyone is keen on being punctual for summer school. 

The first hour we went over rules and procedures and got to know our kids. After this, we administered 3 hours of tests to determine where our kids need the most help. We all “loved” that. Hopefully they will have forgiven us by tomorrow.

I’ve now experienced brief encounters with the achievement gap first hand. In 7^th grade, I remember I was writing entire short stories, responding to advanced reading questions, and deeply engaging in the material of Mr. Samorian’s 7^th grade English classroom. Today, I met a 7^th grade student with 3^rd grade reading level (not uncommon), another who, while proficient in verbalizing words, had little to no understanding of their content, and an average test score of 37% on a standardized 7^th grade assessment. There is much work to be done; that’s why we’ve come here.

From an interpersonal perspective, I get the initial sense the kids like me. A particularly rambunctious child proudly exclaimed that he’d only come if I was his teacher. With that said, I might have to be a bit firmer and will probably “bad cop” it up a bit tomorrow, in order to set strong behavioral expectations. We’ll see. Oh, and I’ve volunteered to take the lower performing half of the classroom (those performing, under 37% on the test) in an effort to align with my future plans of being a special education teacher. I’m not quite sure exactly what implications this has for my next 4 weeks, but I imagine it will be a challenge.

Wednesday – July 6^th

1:00 AM – I am in the copy room making copies of materials for tomorrow’s (today’s) lessons. This place is a hive of activity; everyone is tired and frantic, planning for tomorrow. This is truly a unique experience.

2:00 PM – I finished my lessons from this morning. Now I am a student in another class, learning about phonics. Eyelids heavy. Fast fading. I only got 4 hours of sleep last night.

Thursday – July 7^th

2:17 PM – My mother would be furious. I didn’t sleep at all last night working on lesson plans. I’ve been up for 33 hours straight. That can’t be good…

Saturday – July 9^th

It is now Saturday night at 9:23 PM. I wrote what is above as it happened on my MacBook. You can tell how things progressed. My initial excitement and satisfaction, as presented in the flowery description of a triumphant journey home, soon changed to a worrisome burden, frantic lesson planning and sleepless nights. At one point, I had been up for 42 hours straight. “Grueling” was the term used by my cousin Gretchen after I described it to her. Grueling indeed.

The past 7 days, starting last Sunday at around 11 AM, have been overwhelming, filled with hours upon hours of work and seemingly insurmountable challenges. But I’ve survived. I have to say, Thursday morning at 4:30 AM, while walking to 711 to stock up on 5 Hour Energy and Red Bull in preparation for another 20 hour day, I was worried. I felt like I was failing, like I might not make it. But somehow, I did. I gave my lesson at 8:30 AM to my class of 4 young men and 2 young women. My Corps Member Advisor (CMA) was present and said my energy was excellent, that even though she knew I was tired, there was no indication of it in the classroom. I can’t see how that is possible, but I managed to pull it off. When the class ended at 10:30, I stayed up for another 12 hours. In the afternoon my hand was shaking with exhaustion, but then, out of nowhere, I became calm and the exhaustion receded. I hope to never have to live through that again.

I wrote my CMA a letter in those odd hours of the night, after finishing my 4^th and final lesson plan that was due in the morning. I told her I wasn’t doing well, that I needed help, and that something had to change. But I also said this, “I want to make you this promise. I will not give up.” Because that’s just how it is here. Everyone is pushing themselves to the limit. Everyone is blurry eyed in the copy room at 1 AM just trying to make sure they have enough packets to teach their students in the morning. Most people still don’t know where they will be teaching in the fall. Some are getting sick. Some cry in the stairwells on the phone with their parents. Some question why they are here.

But we won’t leave. We don’t quit because we’ve never done that before. We make due. We roll with it. We push ourselves. And in the end, in 3 short weeks that will feel like an eternity – we’ll be ready. We’ll be ready to manage a classroom and armed with the audacity and confidence that we can become excellent educators. Even though we will still be far from that noble ambition (because I assure you, no one here is arrogant enough to think they will be a star teacher from day one), we will have the resources to grow in our profession. We have the humility to learn from others, the flexibility to work with what we’ve got, and the passion to succeed. We will be joining the most honorable of occupations. We will be teachers.