My "bottom lines" will be a brief summation of anything important up to the point of time I am writing them:-)
Teach for America (TFA) was founded in 1990 by Wendy Kopp, who came up with the idea in her undergraduate senior thesis. The mission of TFA is to expand educational opportunity to all segments of American society. Leaders in the movement are recent college graduates and professionals committing to 2 years of teaching in lower-income rural and urban school districts across the country. Outside of corps members, TFA employees and alumni are active school leaders, policy makers, and entrepreneurs with the goal of reducing--and one day, eliminating--educational inequality across the United States.
Sounds like I've been drinking some Kool-Aid? Well, I do believe in the mission of TFA and the power of its movement. I wouldn't be a Corps Member if I thought otherwise. I am still learning the right ropes of working relentlessly (WR) to plan purposefully (P), execute effectively (E), invest my students (I), and continuously improve my effectiveness on all counts (CIE). I am also trying to balance these and other acronyms (TFA Speak) with my normal, every day thoughts and phrases. At any given time, you can find me either 1) knee-deep in jargon, or 2) using "the speak" with humor rubbed with some grains of salt.
"It's more than O.K:" Tulsa
TFA is expanding every year and this year, one of its new regions is Tulsa, Oklahoma. I found out on May 18, 2009 that I was offered a position as a Corps Member in Tulsa and within a week, decided it would be ok to be an Okie.
It may have been that my expectations were so low, but my first week in Tulsa for TFA Induction (June 22-27) taught me that Tulsa has a lot to offer. I never thought it would come to this, but within week 1 of being in New York, I found myself saying, "I wish I were in Tulsa!"
Located in the northeast of Oklahoma, Tulsa is a city of just over 300K, situated around the Arkansas River (what I like to call the Big A-K). One of the first things I noticed about the city was its thirst for change. It might be too much to call the city "progressive," but it certainly is in the market for, and implementing, some major changes.
A brand new arena and convention center just opened; as a city built on oil, it is looking to expand its development of alternative energy; the health-care debate is on the front page of its newspapers. TFA is only a small part of its push to overhaul education in the city, but the hunger is so present that our program has received unprecedented support from the community.
To put this into perspective, current TFA alumni and staff have reiterated that a region has never been so excited for a corps of teachers to come. The region opened in April after the community raised the money and organized the logistics; by the middle of May, our corps of 80 was hired and by June, the city welcomed us with open arms and loads of free stuff (everything from rental deposits to coffee mugs to hugs). Our superintendent called bringing TFA to Tulsa the crowning achievement of his 40-year career.
Being on the cusp of such great change and innovation in a city such as this is remarkable. It also helps that I live in an apartment complex right on the Big A-K, which includes more amenities at a lower cost than anything I could have imagined in Denver. The roads in Tulsa are confusing, and its drivers are a little different. And, oil and what it has begotten are ever-present. Still, it is a beautiful, friendly city I am proud to call home for at least the next 2 years.
Not the Musical: Teaching in Washington Heights and the NYC Institute Experience
As you may know, I was a journalism/political science double major at DU and have had little experience in anything close to teaching. Most of TFA is like that. We are a diverse group of people coming together to bring fresh perspectives to education. We still need some level of experience before hitting our classrooms in the fall, though.
As such, all corps members go through a 5-week summer institute. Because of timing and logistics, Tulsa trained with Connecticut, Newark, and NY in NYC this past summer. We lived in dorms on a campus in Queens, were provided meals and transportation, and taught summer school in 3 burroughs of New York.
I was assigned to 8th Grade Writing in Washington Heights, one of the northernmost neighborhoods of Manhattan. Washington Heights is a heavily Latin/Carribbean area of NYC, comparable in its poverty, crime and ethnic diversity rates to Harlem.
Every morning for 4 weeks, I was up at 5 a.m., at school by 7 a.m., and teaching about expository writing from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. Before then, I was preparing my classroom, helping in the reading class, or administering tests. After teaching, I usually had academic sessions on curriculum, diversity, literacy, or issues of planning and classroom management on the school site. I left the school at around 4 p.m. every day, only to go back to campus and plan for the days ahead or attend evening classes. All in all, between our 1 week of academics and 4 weeks of teaching and all of the "homework" I had 95-100 weeks. It was incredibly challenging but more than worth it. As far as crash courses go, my education in education was hardcore and rewarding.
More about this experience and my students can be found in this blog under the "New York" label.
This has been a long "bottom line," but I hope it offers just slightly more insight into my life as it stands at the moment:-)
~MJ
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