Sitting in the back of my first classroom, it’s difficult to focus. It isn’t that my colleague teaching isn’t engaging – on the contrary, she is. I could learn a thing or two from her. But I’m distracted.
A radio cackles in the middle school hallway outside of our locked door. It happens almost every day, and few people give it a second thought. But right now, 4 minutes after the Vice Principal announced that the school is on lockdown and that no one is to open the door to his classroom under any circumstances, it’s hard to ignore. Add to that the rising crescendo of nearing sirens and their abrupt stop outside our window, the beating turbines of a searching helicopter, and you’ll understand why the teacher is losing my attention.
I didn’t get here without preparing myself. I read the books about teachers going into inner city schools. “Hardest thing I ever did,” experienced teachers say; “I was challenged in ways that I didn’t think possible.” I read about lockdowns and fights and gang tensions and everything else I could get my hands on. I talked to people. I asked questions. I was ready for the sirens and the announcement and the cackling walkie talkie. But I wasn’t ready for what happened after that.
None of my students flinch when the announcement is made. None of them. Instead, they ask to go to the bathroom, or whether or not they'll be able to leave on time. An armed assailant has broken into a house across the street from the school, tied-up the inhabitants, and fled the crime scene, looking to escape into the streets – and all my students worry about is what time they can get onto those same streets. I can’t believe it. I feel tightness in my chest and shoulders. I’m nervous. Looking around the classroom, I can see that the other two teachers are too. But the kids are fine. It may as well be any other day. It’s heart-breaking.
Continuing her lesson about paragraph structure, my colleague asks the students for the definition of the word negligence. “When something bad happens because someone isn’t paying attention,” says a bright boy in the back. My colleague might have been talking about how we got to the place where kids aren’t scared that a man is running around the streets near them with a gun.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Trial by Fire
I had dinner with my good friends Nick and Liz last night at a popular little restaurant in Manhattan Beach, Los Angeles. It was great to see those two. I hadn't seen them since last summer, before I left for South Africa. After the requisite small talk and remarks about how good it was to see one another, Nick got to the point. First of all, he said, how the hell are you? And second of all, why haven't I read anything on your blog lately?
Nick's ability to hyper-dramatize everything aside, he was right. I haven't written for too long, and there has been much to report: finding an apartment in Chicago, getting a job teaching 8th Grade Social Studies, my first week of teaching summer school in South Central LA, etc. So, here is a brief synopsis of my life since the end of May, ordered from professional to personal. Sorry to be short on anecdotal evidence, but I have hardly had time to get my head around all the changes that are happening, much less faithfully report on them in this forum. As I have discovered this week as a teacher, there is much I can improve on. But also as I have discovered this week as a teacher, the only way to do it is do it. So I'll take a 20-30 minute break from lesson planning persuasive devices in order to catch you up.
I got a job. I'm working at Chicago International Charter School (CICS) Longwood Campus. It is a Charter School run by an Education Management Organization called Edison Schools (http://www.edisonschools.com/; if you read this website, you will know more about the schools and approach than I do). The school is on 95th Street on the South Side of Chicago. It takes students from K-12th grade in 3 distinct academies on the same campus. I will be teaching 8th Grade Social Studies-World History, I believe. I am very, very excited about this. I went for an interview there and was very impressed with my boss as well as the order and apparent high-expectations within the school. We start school in-service in early August, and the first day of school will be August 18th (stay tuned for a report on THAT adventure).
In order to get myself ready for that day, Teach For America is currently training me in Los Angeles. I have been here with all of the Corps Members of Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Los Vegas, for 2 weeks, with 3 weeks to go. Our first week was 12 hours a day of lectures and classes that we took, which was manageable but tiring. But the second week was my first week in the classroom, with a group of 20 8th Graders taking English-Language Arts. I did not sleep more than 5 hours a night that week. Seriously. Constant problem solving and planning have kept me anxious and alert all week. I get up at 5 every morning and go to bed between 12 and 3. It has been, in many ways, the most trying thing I have ever done. I think it would be difficult to have gone through this by myself, but happily, there are a few hundred other people doing it. The TFA staff are supportive and demanding, and I feel myself making personal gains every single day. If you doubt the capacity of TFA to put teachers in the classroom after only 1 week of training, then I only advise you to spend 1 week with these amazing people -- pushing you to your limit, and then asking for a little more. You won't be ready like a person who has studied for years will be ready, but you will be equipped with what you need to step into the classroom and begin experiential, hands-on learning. And that's the real important stuff. The genius of TFA is hands-on experience combined with meaningful reflection and purposeful planning. By stumbling and falling, wondering why, and picking myself up again, I think I am gaining invaluable resiliency skills. And that, much more than any other teacher prep program, is why I'll be ready on August 18th.
I'll be in LA until August 3rd. I spoke to Amber yesterday (my sister-in-law, or cuñada for all you Spanish speakers), and she asked when would be a good time to get ahold of me. Weekends, I told her. "Ah," she said with a note of recognition from her own experiences, "you're on a teacher schedule." And indeed I am.
We got an apartment. It's in River North of Chicago, just north of the Loop downtown. The address is 900 N. Kingsbury, and the building is a 300 room condominium that is the converted warehouse of the Montgomery Ward catalogue (here's a website that is not run by the condo, but has a picture: http://www.irinasellschicago.com/?p=399). It's industrial, big, and -- I think -- beautiful. Our unit is on the 11th floor, has 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, hardwood floors, granite counter-tops with new appliances, and a balcony looking west over the Chicago River. The building has a rooftop track, an exercise room, indoor parking, bicycle storage rooms, and a 24 hour doorman. I am blown away. This is going to be an amazing place to live. The apartment search was thorough, exciting, taxing, and so worthwhile in the end.
(I want to thank Sarah's parents, Bob and Sue, for helping us with this process, and also for being so gracious and letting us stay with them while we tried desperately to come up with a plan for getting out of there.)
Sarah is at home in the Northern suburbs of Chicago right now, babysitting, making a scrapbook of our African adventures, preparing herself for her first day of work at BCG (also August 18; for more on them, go to www.bcg.com), and visiting friends. She is restless, because she is accustomed to accomplishing 3 trillion things each day, but I think that this will be a good gathering time before we are thrown into our respective cauldrons in August. She's going to be great, herself, and has been so supportive of me and my just-beginning struggles. I am very excited to live with her, and to have many of you come and see us.
Other shout-outs and points of interest:
1) Dad got a new Macintosh laptop computer. It took some convincing, but now it looks like he's on the Apple bandwagon. I'm very proud of this, because my Dad will now be the sleakest guy at the Department of Human Services. He's even talking about getting an iPhone! How funny is that?
2) Our home in Des Moines did not sustain major damage in the flooding, nor did any of the cousins' homes in NE Iowa. Dad spent many nights bucketing water out of the basement, but, thankfully, that was all. "Biblical floods," he called them. I'm happy he was only almost right.
3) Grassroot Soccer is still moving ahead in Zimbabwe, although slowly, because of political unrest in the country. It is a scary time there, Methembe has told us from Bulawayo, where I was in November. I hope that everyone is safe and remains that way.
4) Ethan Zohn of Survivor fame, 1 of the founders of GRS, is dribbling a soccer ball from Boston to DC in order to raise money and awareness for GRS' fight against HIV. My friend and fellow intern Lucas Richardson is supporting him on the trip, which will include a stop on the Rachael Ray show, as well as stops through a few MLS games. You can follow his progress at the website http://grassrootsoccerunited.org/.
I think that's it for now. I'm getting back to lesson planning. I got a new cell phone with a Chicago area code, so if you get a call from 312, it's probably me. Have a great week.
Nick's ability to hyper-dramatize everything aside, he was right. I haven't written for too long, and there has been much to report: finding an apartment in Chicago, getting a job teaching 8th Grade Social Studies, my first week of teaching summer school in South Central LA, etc. So, here is a brief synopsis of my life since the end of May, ordered from professional to personal. Sorry to be short on anecdotal evidence, but I have hardly had time to get my head around all the changes that are happening, much less faithfully report on them in this forum. As I have discovered this week as a teacher, there is much I can improve on. But also as I have discovered this week as a teacher, the only way to do it is do it. So I'll take a 20-30 minute break from lesson planning persuasive devices in order to catch you up.
I got a job. I'm working at Chicago International Charter School (CICS) Longwood Campus. It is a Charter School run by an Education Management Organization called Edison Schools (http://www.edisonschools.com/; if you read this website, you will know more about the schools and approach than I do). The school is on 95th Street on the South Side of Chicago. It takes students from K-12th grade in 3 distinct academies on the same campus. I will be teaching 8th Grade Social Studies-World History, I believe. I am very, very excited about this. I went for an interview there and was very impressed with my boss as well as the order and apparent high-expectations within the school. We start school in-service in early August, and the first day of school will be August 18th (stay tuned for a report on THAT adventure).
In order to get myself ready for that day, Teach For America is currently training me in Los Angeles. I have been here with all of the Corps Members of Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Los Vegas, for 2 weeks, with 3 weeks to go. Our first week was 12 hours a day of lectures and classes that we took, which was manageable but tiring. But the second week was my first week in the classroom, with a group of 20 8th Graders taking English-Language Arts. I did not sleep more than 5 hours a night that week. Seriously. Constant problem solving and planning have kept me anxious and alert all week. I get up at 5 every morning and go to bed between 12 and 3. It has been, in many ways, the most trying thing I have ever done. I think it would be difficult to have gone through this by myself, but happily, there are a few hundred other people doing it. The TFA staff are supportive and demanding, and I feel myself making personal gains every single day. If you doubt the capacity of TFA to put teachers in the classroom after only 1 week of training, then I only advise you to spend 1 week with these amazing people -- pushing you to your limit, and then asking for a little more. You won't be ready like a person who has studied for years will be ready, but you will be equipped with what you need to step into the classroom and begin experiential, hands-on learning. And that's the real important stuff. The genius of TFA is hands-on experience combined with meaningful reflection and purposeful planning. By stumbling and falling, wondering why, and picking myself up again, I think I am gaining invaluable resiliency skills. And that, much more than any other teacher prep program, is why I'll be ready on August 18th.
I'll be in LA until August 3rd. I spoke to Amber yesterday (my sister-in-law, or cuñada for all you Spanish speakers), and she asked when would be a good time to get ahold of me. Weekends, I told her. "Ah," she said with a note of recognition from her own experiences, "you're on a teacher schedule." And indeed I am.
We got an apartment. It's in River North of Chicago, just north of the Loop downtown. The address is 900 N. Kingsbury, and the building is a 300 room condominium that is the converted warehouse of the Montgomery Ward catalogue (here's a website that is not run by the condo, but has a picture: http://www.irinasellschicago.com/?p=399). It's industrial, big, and -- I think -- beautiful. Our unit is on the 11th floor, has 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, hardwood floors, granite counter-tops with new appliances, and a balcony looking west over the Chicago River. The building has a rooftop track, an exercise room, indoor parking, bicycle storage rooms, and a 24 hour doorman. I am blown away. This is going to be an amazing place to live. The apartment search was thorough, exciting, taxing, and so worthwhile in the end.
(I want to thank Sarah's parents, Bob and Sue, for helping us with this process, and also for being so gracious and letting us stay with them while we tried desperately to come up with a plan for getting out of there.)
Sarah is at home in the Northern suburbs of Chicago right now, babysitting, making a scrapbook of our African adventures, preparing herself for her first day of work at BCG (also August 18; for more on them, go to www.bcg.com), and visiting friends. She is restless, because she is accustomed to accomplishing 3 trillion things each day, but I think that this will be a good gathering time before we are thrown into our respective cauldrons in August. She's going to be great, herself, and has been so supportive of me and my just-beginning struggles. I am very excited to live with her, and to have many of you come and see us.
Other shout-outs and points of interest:
1) Dad got a new Macintosh laptop computer. It took some convincing, but now it looks like he's on the Apple bandwagon. I'm very proud of this, because my Dad will now be the sleakest guy at the Department of Human Services. He's even talking about getting an iPhone! How funny is that?
2) Our home in Des Moines did not sustain major damage in the flooding, nor did any of the cousins' homes in NE Iowa. Dad spent many nights bucketing water out of the basement, but, thankfully, that was all. "Biblical floods," he called them. I'm happy he was only almost right.
3) Grassroot Soccer is still moving ahead in Zimbabwe, although slowly, because of political unrest in the country. It is a scary time there, Methembe has told us from Bulawayo, where I was in November. I hope that everyone is safe and remains that way.
4) Ethan Zohn of Survivor fame, 1 of the founders of GRS, is dribbling a soccer ball from Boston to DC in order to raise money and awareness for GRS' fight against HIV. My friend and fellow intern Lucas Richardson is supporting him on the trip, which will include a stop on the Rachael Ray show, as well as stops through a few MLS games. You can follow his progress at the website http://grassrootsoccerunited.org/.
I think that's it for now. I'm getting back to lesson planning. I got a new cell phone with a Chicago area code, so if you get a call from 312, it's probably me. Have a great week.
Friday, April 25, 2008
Continuation of Posts
I'm toying with the idea of continuing to write of my experiences and share them with you, mostly my relatives. And, instead of starting a new blog and having to ask Sarah what to name it, I think it makes the most sense to continue with this one (after all, People in Grass Houses shouldn't throw stones in Africa or in the U.S.).
So, assuming I'll retool the subtitle, I'll invite you to continue reading about my experiences. Next adventure: getting a job teaching, and then learning how to do.
So, assuming I'll retool the subtitle, I'll invite you to continue reading about my experiences. Next adventure: getting a job teaching, and then learning how to do.
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