6:15 AM:  An iced coffee from Starbucks.  Get those caffeinated juices flowing!

6:25 AM:  Walk into school, finish preparing the day’s lesson by adding some completed problems to my power point.

6:40 AM:  A senior who is finishing a math course online to graduate comes in.  We work through some problems for about 40 minutes until the daily staff meeting.

7:50 AM: One of my favorite parts of the day.  Daily chapel!  Unfortunately, one of my homeroom girls is out of uniform.  Again.  After chapel, I walk her down to the office.  I tell her if anything is going on she wants to talk about, she should let me know.

8:55 AM:  My first 100 minute block of geometry.  I’ve had the last 40 minutes to work on tomorrow’s lesson and I’m psyched to see my kids.  They aren’t happy that they aren’t working in groups as much, but some of them understand that we aren’t being very productive.

10:45 AM: Prep hour!  I work through tomorrow’s word problems, trying to scaffold them so my lower level students can still work with them.  I call 2 parents about their child’s detention that afternoon.

12:00 PM:  Study hall with my lovely home room girls.  These ladies go through things at home that I can’t dream of.  So they’re usually grumbling about the amount of homework they have or staying after school.  However, they are trying pretty hard to get along with one another.  My chapel girl comes to collect her work–she’s having a tough time and I’m pretty sure she hates me right now.  But she’s got a great heart and has SO much potential.

2:15 PM:  I say goodbye to my second geometry class and make 3 more phone calls.  More detention!  Although I can’t complain.  None of them try to fight the consequence, and almost every student finished their exit ticket.  While my classroom has improved x 100 since September, I’m still pushing them to complete more difficult problems and some of them are struggling.

3:20 PM:  After 15 minutes of home room (we’re doing surveys), I check in students for overtime and detention.  I change into my running clothes–one of my more challenging ladies hasn’t gotten kicked out of class in a week and loves to run, so we head down to the park.

4:30 PM:  In my classroom grading the day’s practice.  I try to make at least 2 meaningful comments on each paper, but it doesn’t feel like enough.  We have a quiz tomorrow and we’re still struggling with absolute value equations.

5:05 PM:  Out the door! Heading to the gym to lift weights.

7:00 PM:  Finishing up tomorrow’s lesson and submitting my final paper for a graduate class at Marquette.  Law and Order SVU is on my Hulu Plus as I work [a guilty pleasure].

Once again, this isn’t NEAR the amount that some of your teachers put in.  I fight the feeling each day that I’m not doing enough, that I’m not good enough yet.   I watch my colleagues go above and beyond every single day and to be honest, that’s why inspires me more than anything.

Thank you, THANK YOU to my teachers, professors, administrators, and support staff at Orrville City Schools and Marietta College.  The countless hours I spent seeking the counsel of my teachers on their off hours or after school, the van rides with sports coaches to extra track meets, the celebration with my college professors when I got this job after graduation.  It’s immeasurable.  These are the experiences that money cannot buy.  You’re more than appreciated…you’re cherished.

During the school week, its a rarity to see the sun.  I arrive at school before the sun comes up, and don’t make it out until the sun goes down.  So, taking two campus tours today was just lovely.  Seeing the sun this afternoon was amazing.

And, as I was recruited to join 3 different student organizations at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (and contemplated the fact that many of the students recruiting me were at least my age), I realized how different my life is now.  Not being a full time student (well, I’m a full-time student still technically, but my own school work never makes it off the back burner), donning professional clothing and drinking my coffee at 5:30 AM, and being seen as the “teacher” in parent-teacher conferences has given my life a fundamentally different focus.  I wake up early on weekends.  Instead of procrastinating, I just plow through work–because not even my worst 19 credit hour, waitress working, track coaching semesters can lay a finger on my life now.

Okay, well I still procrastinate.

Anyways, the winter time can be a tough season for a first year teacher.  The school year is reaching its halfway point, and even though time has FLOWN, the allure of the end of June is still far, far away.  Even the most wonderful of my students can grate my nerves, and its not because I don’t love them.  We’ve just spent lots of time together.  Graduate school classes are back in FULL swing, and while our professors are aware that we’re struggling new teachers with bigger worries than their assignments, it still doesn’t mean we don’t have to do them…and do them well.  By this time of the year, I’ve learned that its really easy to be a bad teacher.  Show up, don’t implement a management system, and try to work through a couple of handouts.  On the flip side, its almost impossible to be a good teacher, especially when you’re new.  So I’m spending time tweaking lessons, finding supplies to put my discovery lesson ideas into action, and fine-tuning the feedback I give students.  It takes hours to grade a short answer/essay exam well.  On Sunday, I spent 6 hours at Alterra (a fine coffee shop) and over an hour was spent creating a power point for a game that will only last about thirty minutes!  Oh, the humanity!!

All this aside, there are some sneaky golden rays of sunshine.  While I walked around college campuses today daydreaming about trucking from the Sigma Kappa house to Rickey one more time for a bad joke at the start of Abstract Algebra, my students learned that they get to pick their own classes in college, choose who to live with, and that curfew doesn’t exist in the strange world of residence halls.  I guess I’ll try my darndest to make sure they get to have the memories and happiness that come with attaining a college degree. Besides, I keep watching that “Pep Talk” video from Kid President.  My half hour respite on Thursday nights will come back as there is a new Big Bang Theorey episode…and Doctor Who has announced its spring return!  There are some things to look forward to.  And maybe, just maybe, next year I won’t be all by myself in Milwaukee.  [Fingers crossed]

This Wednesday, my students will be embarking on a proofing adventure.  I’m going to set the scene with some East Asian music and we’re going to work through a proof.  A real one.  It’s going to be hard.  But so, SO great.

I’ve realized (or I always knew) that the biggest excitement that I get over teaching is that I get to teach math.  I know, I know… I’m teaching children, not just the subject.  But there’s something about the fundamental inequities in mathematics education and the tremendous potential that students who receive a proper math education are privy to that are just astounding.

Teach for America, and the accountability movement in general, like to boil things down to the “numbers”.  Its why my school and other schools align to the ACT College Readiness Standards–because students who do well on the ACT do well in college.  Now, my allegiance to this system will not be discussed today.  There’s a bigger number that I want to talk about.

That, my friends, is calculus.  And the undeniable correlation between students who complete calculus and students who complete a 4 year degree.  Math is the key.  GOOD math is the key.

I want to shout this from the mountaintops.  A mathematics curriculum rich in problem solving, proofs, justification, and independent learning is what will make or break college success for my kids.  This is what i want for Christmas.

And while I can’t give them that, I can give them an exercise in proofs.  A little taste of what their lives would be like daily if they went to a suburban school.  And I know its only just one step, but I’m learning quickly that step-by-step is the only way things ever progress in the world of education.

Short post this time around.  Sorry, beloved fans.

The Milwaukee Parental Choice Program.  The reason my lovely school exists.  What a tough idea to grapple with.

The good:

–without it, would my students be at  less effective MPS school?

–Christian and character grounded education for students who wouldn’t otherwise get it (while this isn’t a goal of the choice program, I think its one of the things that keeps my school pushing forwards)

–no red tape.  Not many of the teachers at my school have Wisconsin teaching licenses or administrators licenses.  But mark my words, the state of Wisconsin is LUCKY to have such dedicated educators in their state

–no red tape (again).  Parents/guardians sign the handbook and agree to come to conferences, accept our school wide management plan, etc.  They get mad about waiting for an hour ’cause their kid is in detention?  They signed on to this.

–No Wisconsin state standards here!  My students laughed at the WKCE on Friday.  They’re getting a richer education.

The bad:

–what about the kids whose parents don’t care? (It happens).

–Segregation: my school is 99.9% African American.  Which is fine, but I want their eyes open to a diverse range of experiencse

–Community activism:  in a neighborhood school, the school becomes a rallying point, a place to hold meetings, a place to organize movement.  My students are dispersed throughout the city (although HOPE has more of a community feel than most)

–long term investment.  A parent gets mad?  They take their kid out of the school.  They don’t like that school?  They move again.  Kids change schools here like I changed hair color in college.  Instead of choice causing competition, it can feel like a bad election when you pick the “best” of the worst.   A bunch of mediocre schools with students moving in and out.

While I may not be a relentless supporter of the “choice movement”, I know that my kids are better off right now.  This isn’t even scratching the surface of an expansive issue.  But I figured I would jot some ideas down (especially since I’m planned for the week! Only ’cause its Thanksgiving).  Thoughts about how you’ve seen school choice work in your community is welcome

Fast forward.  I gave positive narration to redirection at a 2:1 ratio last Friday…and I’m still not being positive enough!  I’ve started writing post-it notes before class with praise to give students during class and try SO HARD to redirect individually rather than a bunch of “Ladies and gentlemen, you’re not doing ____”.  It seems so silly, but its the BEST teaching trick I’ve picked up so far in terms of classroom management.  I haven’t sent a single student out of my class in the last two days (a typical consequence in my school is to send students into the hallway).  I’ve also called 18 parents so far this week.  Sure, not all of them picked up, and it might not work…but I actually feel like I’m nearing 100% compliance.  Sometimes.

On another note, I’m crazy frustrated with the standards that I work with in my school.  Its SO HARD to transform them into critical thinking tasks when the true “requirement” is to memorize a set of steps and regurgitate them.  I can’t wait to ask family and friends for resource books from NCTM for Christmas.  The holidays will never be the same.

My final reflection in this disjointed  post is how happy I am to be working at HOPE.  Its CERTAINLY not perfect…but I can’t believe I’m working with people who are trying their absolute hardest to be as close to perfect as possible.  My school LOVES kids and no matter how many years they have taught are working like crazy to make themselves better.  Wow.  It’s hard not to give it 100% with colleagues like this.

I’ll be at the airport headed back to OHIO 2 weeks from this very moment.  YESSSS!!!!

I watch the Mitt Romney ad slamming small class sizes as a trick created by teacher’s unions and explaining in the first debate that schools should be rated simply as A, B, C, D, and F regardless of the resources each school does or doesn’t have.  I admit, I scratched my head.  Clearly University School, a private school with tuition costs that rival my undergrad institution, will receive a higher garde than the school at which I teach.  If my students had the option to attend a phenomenal school, programs like choice and charters wouldn’t have to exist.   He tells students to borrow money from their parents, and I look at my students who have no such option.  ”Borrow what”, they ask.  I worry he is so far removed from the issues that plague my students that he can’t fathom what it will take to improve their trajectories in life.

President Obama has raised Pell Grant money, and for that I’m grateful.  Thankfully, waivers for NCLB are coming through.  However, the past four years has seen little change in the standardized testing frenzy and has not tackled some of the most fundamental issues that plague our schools.  Race to the Top is an interesting idea, and certainly the funding during a recession was helpful, but it’s not promoting the kind of positive change we need.  Thanks to his elite university education, Obama shows he has cultivated the thinking skills required to be a global leader–but hasn’t used his position to ensure my students receive the opportunity to fine tune those same skills.

So, I will explain what a candidate would have to do to have my full support.  That candidate would support moving away from local property taxes as a means to fund education.  I know it sounds great to be contributing to your “local” school instead of a state or nationwide pull, but it is fundamentally unjust for students like mine.  Next, my ideal candidate would promote teaching as a profession–by championing raising standards of schools of education, raising teacher salaries so they would attract the best candidates (why is it OK for companies to offer ludicrous packages to lure in CEOs, but not okay in this instance?  In this case, let schools run like a business!).  When the title of “Teacher” comes with the same respect that is associated with “lawyer” or “doctor”, then the best possible potential candidates flock towards the profession.  Finally, my ideal candidate would look beyond the four or eight years of his or her administration.  Education is a phenomenal investment, but it takes time to see the return on that investment.  Promoting early childhood education may not win you points politically, but students will be prepared for school and learn the language and reading skills that can make or break their future before they step through their first grade door.  Understanding that education cannot be measured in temporary test scores, but the cultivation of thinking skills over one’s academic career might not sound great in an ad or speech, but it will make the difference in years to come.

Right now, I can’t find my ideal candidate.  So keep your politics out of my education, candidates.  Don’t use it as a pawn.  We KNOW what works.  I just haven’t found anyone with the guts to put it into policy yet.

Of COURSE I can do better.  I’ve been at this for 8 weeks.  I know my weaknesses.  I struggle following through with consequences and I’m having problems breaking down material for students–I studied math, but I’ve never taught it to someone who didn’t understand.  i’m not realizing the vision I had for my students.  Yet.

Sometimes I feel stuck between the proverbial rock and hard place.  I expect such big things of myself–my students don’t have time for me to figure out how to be a better teacher.  At the same time, I want someone to pat me on the back for working harder than I’ve ever worked.  For occasionally getting SOMETHING right in my classroom.  But in this end game, my students don’t succeed because I “tried my best”.  Their education can’t be put on hold until I figure out HOW to educate them.  Their clocks are ticking.  They succeed if I’ve done my job well.

So, I’ll keep trying.  I’ll identify my weaknesses and game plan to fix them.  I will plan better lessons, hold my students to the highest expectations, and find a way to achieve better results.  I’ll keep demanding more and not relent until I have found a way to open pathways for them.  I just hope that I can do it before time runs out.

Got it?

Instead of writing in my own journal, I want this to be read.  I’m so, so frustrated.  No, not with Teach for America.  Or with education.  I’m mad at the world.

You see, on Sunday, a gunman killed worshippers at a temple not too far from where I live.  Beyond that, I’ve read article after article talking about gun violence and the politics behind fast-food restaurants.  And while these seem like completely different issues, to me, they all boil down to the same thing.

Some people can’t STAND their fellow human being.  Maybe its because they’re gay.  Maybe they’re a “foreigner” [a term which I love, because, unless you're family traces back to Native Americans, we were all foreigners once].  Perhaps they’re of a different religion, race, or political ideology.  For one reason or another, I’ve noticed that we like to draw lines in the sand of who is “us” and who is “them”.  Whoever is “like” us is “with us”, and to hell with those who are not.  And its upset me more than anything in my life.

I’ve been told that I care too much about the world, and its probably true.  I recognize that this world will never be perfect.  But does that mean that I shouldn’t do everything I can to make it just a little bit better?  To hope that my work will lead one more person to find success or happiness when they’re likely heading for despair?

Of course, I, like everyone, think that my values and beliefs are the right ones.  And if you’re reading this, you at least recognize my right to have them.    So, here they are.

I believe that the Second Amendment was never supposed by interpreted the way we see it now.  I don’t at all understand why weapons capable of killing many people quickly should be marketed, sold, and protected so vehemently.  Shouldn’t we be protecting each other?

I acknowledge the right for anyone to think that homosexuality is a sin.  I also acknowledge the right of fast food CEO to exercise their rights.  I would like to exercise mine by not eating at an establishment that donates to some of the most hateful groups I’ve heard of in the name of God.But even moreso, I put my full faith behind the First Amendment.  No one’s religion should dictate the legal term of marriage.  If you want religion to dominate the government, please, move to Iran.  Or start campaigning for laws the prohibit premarital sex.  Or adultery. Sin is sin in God’s eyes, and I don’t believe that we have the authority to decide what He sees as “more” wrong.  And just one last thing on this.  See, many of my friends are gay.  And that’s great.  I will love them as fiercely as any friend who isn’t.  Because a person is a person.  When we start thinking otherwise, we get ourselves into big trouble.

I believe that just because someone is Muslim doesn’t mean that they’re a terrorist.  Anymore than being a Christian means that I have blue hair or something.  How dangerous an assumption.  I think that we have so much to learn from those of Islamic faith (The Koran refers to Christians and Jews as “people of the book”) and need to understand that affect that Americans have had on their culture and government.  They’re humans, too.

Finally, I think that no one can should EVER judge another person until, as Atticus Finch tells us to do, step in their skin and walk around in it.  We spend so much energy putting each other down–because you’re a minority, because you’re a woman, because you’re gay, because you’re overweight…that we end up alienating the best resources we have to make our world just a little bit better.

This is a rather scattered collection of statements.  But I needed to get them off my chest.  I think that we have so much to offer one another.  Imagine what a world would be like if we (shhh, TFA-ism here) suspended a little judgement.  What if we acknowledged our own shortcomings?  What if we embraced the best in each other?  I’m going to take this from a Christian perspective for a second.  What if we did in fact love our neighbor like God loves us, and let Him be the judge of our fellow human?  I thought that was what I was supposed to do.

Let me sign off  by saying that I’ve witnessed and experienced the best of what humans have to offer.  I’ve experienced compassion, kindness, and the purest form of love on this planet from those closest to me and from complete strangers.  We are capable of so much more that what the news tries to tell me.  I know we are, because I’ve seen it.  And I won’t rest until all the world experiences it.

BUT.  I did finish my “Story of Self.”  It was a very tricky thing to write!  I wanted to include it as a little taste of why I decided to join TFA, as it has been a long and twisted journey, as any of my friends (or my advisor) from MC could attest to.  So, here it is (be warned–this is probably the most personal thing I’ve ever posted on the internet! And its still a pretty rough draft.)

As an avid Nicholas Sparks fan, trying to communicate the values and experiences that have shaped my life has caused me to revisit a quotation from The Notebook.  Duke introduces him by saying “I am no one special, just a common man with common thoughts.  I’ve led a common life.  There will be no monuments dedicated to me, and my name will soon be forgotten.”  As someone who is lucky enough to have escaped life-altering challenges in my first 21 years of existence, I resonate deeply with Duke’s sentiments.  And yet, I realize that there are two things drastically different between Duke and myself.  First, I’m clearly not a man.  And second, I’d like to think that I don’t think too many common thoughts.

The most eye-opening compliment I’ve ever received was from my best friend, who wrote that I care deeply about the world—more deeply than most.  When I read this on a Christmas card, I began to realize that I take matters of the world to heart at an unusual level.  (I should have noticed when she gave me a decorated jar with the words “World Peace Fund” painted on it).  I reflected on the course selections and career paths I considered in college—while I certainly was drawn to one of my majors, mathematics, I eagerly signed up for courses in leadership, public policy, and international development.  After worrying that my originally declared major of mathematics/education was too narrow for me to serve the world, I pursued majors in International Leadership Studies and Political Science before worrying that these career paths were too broad to inflict the kind of change I wanted to on the world. Oh, goodness.   Despite forays into several career options, I knew I wanted to be involved in education—though through my college career this manifested into short-lived dreams of educational law, civil rights freedom fighter (I could study Brown v. Board of Education for weeks without becoming bored), and education policy researcher.  While these options are certainly attractive and worthwhile pursuits in creating a more fair and just world, they didn’t sit well with me for too long.

I was fortunate enough to be raised in a family and an environment that deeply valued education.  My mother attained nursing licensure as a youth, spending much hours that would be furiously rebuked by average student while pursuing this career path.  My father never wanted to leave school, attaining a Ph. D. in polymer science when I was a toddler and teaching at both the high school and university level.  In my childhood, the concept of graduating from college was never questioned.  I was fortunate to have several passionate and talented teachers, especially in math and science, who reinforced the idea that I could chase any dream I wanted to after high school.  In this way, I was incredibly blessed, but knew innately, with a greater understanding than most in my circumstances, that this path to happiness and prosperity was not shared by many of the children I attended school with or grew up in other areas.

I wish I could identify a “lightbulb” moment that opened my eyes to my intrinsically held values and motivations behind my life’s big decisions.  Looking back, I should have identified my passion when I was 16 and purchased Rafe Esquith’s “There Are No Shortcuts”.  Or maybe I should have gotten a clue when I’ve spent the last 7 years coaching gymnastics and track and field, counting these memories to be among the happiest of my life.   Or better yet, when I was 18, didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, and went to Google to figure this mystery out like every child of the Millennial generation does.   My search told me to list things that I cared about, from flowers to travel to new running shoes.  My online guidance suggested that when I happen upon a subject or notion that moves me to tears, I should persevere endlessly to do whatever that idea may be.   I saved that document, and it read “That the opportunity of learning and thinking to one’s greatest potential be given to everyone.”  I’d like to think that this idea isn’t too bad for a Google search.

The idea of education and the notion of the unparalleled importance of the struggle for and the attainment of knowledge has been one of the most powerful motivators of my life.  I wish I could place a defining happenstance that made it so, but the circumstances of my life and opportunities to confront inequality have ingrained this so deeply in my soul that I can’t remember when it arrived.  I know it was cultivated through my studies as an undergraduate, when I was given the chance to understand the meaning of teacher leadership and critically examine dozens of ideas to make my Google dream come true.  Thankfully, the only thing that has changed about this defining ideal is that I’ve realized that while the notion of true education equality isn’t necessarily as common as Duke considers himself to be, it may not be as solitary as I once believed and I’ve found ways to join forces with those that have the same unshakable belief.

I was awarded a fellowship from KSTF, which is AMAZING.  Their support (both  financially and in PD) makes me feel a lot more comfortable.  Plus, their fellowship is a five year commitment, so I know I’ll be in the classroom for five years.  I knew that before, but it is nice to have confirmation of my goals

Second, I have been placed!  I interviewed with HOPE Christian High School a couple of weeks ago, skyped with them this week, and got an offer.  I couldn’t be more blessed in terms of placement.  The school is 100% dedicated to college preparation and are doing all sorts of movin’ and shakin’ to make it happen for their students!  I’ll be teaching geometry, which I much prefer to Algebra I or II.  I was shocked to be placed in a Christian school (TFA was great about emphasizing not taking positions at religious schools if you felt uncomfortable), but the school aligns well with my faith and I’m so excited to rely on Christian values for my own guidance, as well as for my students.

In short, it’s been a wonderful week.  I feel like TFA is really happening (got assigned pre-institute work, hurrah…kind of).  i’m still totally sure I’m going to be in over my head.  But that will be okay