AHHHHH Addendum

In fewer than 12 hours, I will be standing in front of a classroom full of students. My students, to be specific. And I will be teaching them...... what? Unclear. Here's a rundown on my life right now:

The Good:

• The waiting is nearly over. I've sort of been thinking of this day ever since January 7, when I found out about TFA. Of course, I was more preoccupied with that pesky case of mono back in January, but regardless, this day has loomed large for quite some time now. I'm glad it's finally here and will be over and done with soon enough. No more holding my breath.
• My classroom turned out slightly better than I expected. Yes, I'm in a trailer, which leaves lots to be desired (see upcoming section appropriately titled "The Bad"), but the classroom as it exists now is palatable. Pictures will come soon. Hopefully I can snap some tomorrow morning before the kids come in and "work their magic," aka destroy what I have spent the past week creating...
• Labor Day Weekend is five days away.
  

The Bad:

• I don't want to say anything bad about my school, because honestly I'm thrilled to be there. I think it's a great environment to work in, I like the people I've met so far, etc. etc. However, it has been a rather rushed week, what with all the training/meetings (like being at Institute all over again). We couldn't get into our rooms until Monday, and my cozy little trailer is still bereft of technology: no TV for morning announcements, no overhead, no computers, no clock. Must remind self ot bring a watch tomorrow. Oh, and the desks are too short for fifth graders. But I'm sure all this will get worked out over the next couple of days.
• I don't know what to teach. Like, really don't know. The fifth grade team is awesome, but we don't know yet if we're departmentalizing (each teacher taking one subject), team teaching (pairing up in twos, so each teacher has 2 subjects), or being totally self-contained (every man for himself), and we won't know that until we see how the schedule works. Needless to say, this is causing great deals of frustration and stress. Will I be teaching math? Reading? Science? Any of them? All three? As of right now, I have no idea. So, that's fun. Tomorrow is just going over procedures, rules, and the like, so I'll be able to get through that OK, and I'm sure my team will help me with the rest of the week. But still.
• Labor Day Weekend is five days away.

The Ugly:

• Probably me after the sleepless night I'm pretty sure is coming.
  

So, that's an abbreviated version of what's going on in my life right now. There was so much more I wanted to say, but my brain still hurts and I should concentrate all my energy on two things: 1) Preparing for tomorrow and 2) watching the Closing Ceremonies. Mainly the latter. Related note: Up until faaaaar too late in my life, I thought that "latter" was pronounced like "later."

DNS: Have you ever stopped to consider that our national anthem ends in a question? "O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave???" How much cooler would it be if we all did a Scooby Doo-type inflection at the end of it? Home of the brave??? Also: every sentence in this paragraph except this one has ended in a question.

OK, must get to work. For realzies. Wish me luck!

See how they run!

Well, as I alluded to in the last post, I'm getting better and better at determining exactly what is frustrating me about this little shindig. I unleashed my theory on poor Dad the other day, but I think it boils down to me feeling stifled. Or stymied. Or some other sti/sty word that I will perhaps think of in the middle of the night. Basically, I find myself bereft of the ability to be creative. Muffled. Forced to think inside the box. I understand why I feel like this, and I also understand that TFA has an incredibly hard job teaching 600 novices how to become decent teachers in 5 weeks (a job I very much appreciate). But still.

Since I'm still trying to enforce my self-imposed moratorium on complaining, I'll cut it off here, and instead let you know what I've been doing in order to avoid thinking about how frustrated I am:

1. Baking. My roommates love me.
2. Watching Movies. This is pure escapism. I have purchased no fewer than 11 movies while at Institute, and I'm slowly making my way through them. Something to know for the future: I think my greatest weakness might be $5-7 DVDs. Do not let me near the Wal-Mart entertainment section or I will go crazy. I don't even want to tell you some of the less-than-stellar titles I almost picked up because they were only $5. Also, Amazon was having a great sale (thanks for all the gift certificates, family!)
3. Teaching Myself to Draw. If talent with a pencil is a genetic trait, I should probably have it. So I'm trying to unlock that part of myself. Today was my first lesson, and--speaking as the teacher and student--I must say it went... OK. At this stage in the game, I'm googling peoples' line drawings and copying them. I found sketches of a cartoonish man and woman on someone's blog and did my best. For some reason, I can only draw sad eyes. Perhaps all the characters that inhabit Imagination Town have had some sort of recent trauma. The woman's ears looked nice, though. The man kind of looked like a cartoon Brad Pitt with Conan O'Brien's hair. I haven't figured out whether or not this is a good thing... Oh, and I'm awesome at eyebrows. Probably the least helpful part of the face to know how to draw, but I've got it down.
   

Follow-up question for self: Is there such thing as a helpful part of the face to know how to draw? Must think on this one.

DNS: I had sushi for the first time on Friday. Yes, I managed to avoid it in the Greenhouse Cafe for four years, though the end-of-the-year Board Plus Surplus (Board SurPlus?) always tempted me. But I did it right and went to a real sushi restaurant (which was really cool, by the way, though I'm not entirely comfortable with the tagline "Food. Fun. Flirt." for a restaurant... Discuss...) ANYWAY, it was... surprisingly good. I'm 98% sure I ordered the lamest one on the menu (aka the one that tasted most like chicken), but hey, at least I tried!

Totally Awesome Person of the Week (TAPoW): Fellow fontophile Megan, for sending me this link after my last post.

And now, of course, it is well past my bedtime. Must wake up tomorrow and do it all over again.

Please let me know how you all are doing, and whether or not your fifth graders are able to make inferences...
--amfm

In the Beginning...

I felt like a teacher for the first time today. Yes, I have yet to interact with the kids. Yes, the amount of things I need to learn is beyond staggering. Yes, I am so exhausted that I was kind of unaware I could feel anything... But despite all this, when I went to the Resource Room on campus today and checked out three books to start lesson planning, I really felt like a teacher. Was it amazing? Sort of. I'm too cynical to be truly moved by all the super-duper feelings that run rampant here at Institute, which may or may not be to my detriment. But it was cool nonetheless.

Let me back up. I realize I've done a shoddy job of keeping everyone informed on the specifics of what I'm doing this summer. Institute is Teach for America's massive teacher boot camp. For five weeks, future Corps Members from Atlanta, Charlotte (that's me!), Memphis, Jacksonville, Eastern North Carolina, and Miami-Dade descend on the Georgia Tech campus in the heart of Atlanta and work absolutely grueling hours in the aim of helping to close the nation's achievement gap. The official TFA literature puts the purpose/mission into much better words than I can, so I encourage you to do a bit of Googling if you're so inspired...

Anyway, at Institute this summer, we not only learn, we teach. I found out yesterday I'll be teaching 5th grade reading at an Atlanta summer school starting on Monday. The nuances of what exactly I'll be teaching are still a bit murky, but I will have real, live students in my classroom, and I'll be the one they're looking to for inspiration and instruction. In a word: Yikes.

Because I want to give you the most accurate picture (and because I want you to feel sorry for me), here is a typical daily schedule for this first week:

• 5:30 am (yes, ante meridian): Wake up. The only times I have ever been awake this early include those rare nights when I just didn't sleep at all and the occasional morning flight. Do I have the willpower to drag myself out of bed before the sun is up? Hardly. But if we miss the bus, we have to pay for our own cab to the school. Suffice it to say that my stinginess just barely edges out my tiredness. For now, at least. Let it also be known that 5:30 is cutting it really close (duh), and many people are waking up at 5 am or earlier. Ouch.

• 5:45 am: Eat breakfast. Why, yes, I *do* get ready in fifteen minutes. I have finally learned the importance of preparing for the morning before I go to bed. This might be because I am not coherent enough at 5:30 am to pick out an outfit, let alone pack up my materials.

• 6:15 am: Load the bus. Don't even get me started on this. The bus has yet to leave before 6:30, though we've been told time and time again that the doors will mercilessly shut on any and everyone at 6:15 sharp.

• 7 am (ish): Arrive at school. It's a beautiful building, though perhaps more structurally complicated than that Escher-esque room at the end of Labyrinth.

• 7:15 am - 4:30 pm: Work. It's nearly bedtime now and these nine hours deserve a proper unpacking, so I'm going to fudge this section a little bit. If I ever find the motivation to update this blog, you better believe I'll detail what's going on during this time. As a brief summary, we're spending time learning about TFA's mission and how best to implement it in the schools this summer and fall. We get time to plan our lessons and all that, which is great, but there are severe flaws in the system. I spent a good 40 minutes today detailing said flaws in an email to the School Director that might never get sent, but we'll see. They're working hard and they're working us hard, and I just want to make sure our limited time is being spent well. Is that too much to ask? Who knows...

• 4:30 pm - 5:45 pm: Travel back to school and eat dinner. Not much to say here except that the Georgia Tech Dining Staff know how to make a mean pasta salad.

• 5:45 pm - 11 pm: There are usually some sessions in the evening. Today we had Opening Ceremonies and Wendy Kopp (the Founder and CEO) came to speak. I'd seen her speak at Harvard and she's always inspiring, but at the same time, I kind of wished I had been napping. But at this point in my life, I kind of always wish I were napping. No offense, Wendy! As the weeks progress and we get into actual teaching, I assume we'll burn the midnight oil doing lesson plans. The good news is that we're working in groups for a lot of it. The bad news is that none of us have ever planned a lesson before, so we're about as clueless as Cher Horowitz herself (to the old-timers reading this, many apologies for the thoroughly Gen X reference--or am I Gen Y? No one ever taught me this).
  

• 11 pm - 5:30 am (for now): Sleep. Lather, rinse, repeat.

That's all I have time and energy for now. I need to skim these lovely tomes I've just picked up (including The Twits by Roald Dahl!) and--most importantly--I need to go to sleep.

If you're reading this, you're probably someone I love and miss very much. If I don't know you, you're kind of a creeper, but welcome nonetheless. To those of you who are postally inclined, please email me and I will send you my address here so you can send me lots of letters and pictures and all that good stuff.

For now, Miss McCallie out.