Obviously, it would be impossible to answer this question honestly without first saying this: you should not join the Mississippi Teacher Corps if you don’t think you can handle everything that goes along with teaching in a critical-needs school. It feels like a bit of a cop-out not to talk about what this means, but vacation is making me lazy and it's simply too big a question to answer in one blog. If you’re debating whether or not teaching in this kind of environment is right for you, read the blogs; talk to current MTC-ers and alums. It’s all there.
If you do think that this life is the one you want (at least for two years), here are a few things to consider before you commit to join us in Oxford in May.
The strength of this program, as compared to other alternate-route programs, lies in two things: the training and support, and the bonds that form in a small group of people who are going through the same challenging and downright crazy experience. If you’re more interested in doing this by yourself—if you’re a lone wolf, to borrow from The Hangover—the rest of us are going to drive you crazy.
I do have to warn my lovely little lone wolves: this is a really, really hard thing to do by yourself, especially if you are not from the area where you’re teaching. You will need to talk, and more often than not, the only people who will understand are the ones going through the same thing. If I had a dollar for every time I emailed, texted, or called an MTC-er this semester to complain, brag, congratulate, or beg ask for lesson ideas, I would be eating at Walker’s every night.
On the subject of MTC’s superior training and support: this is only helpful if you are the type to accept advice. This program has tremendous resources to offer you support. Please recognize that sometimes this support will come in the form of criticism. The system only works if you can accept that the criticism you receive in summer school, etc is meant to help you, and comes from people who were in your shoes. You will probably be terrible in the beginning. That’s okay. We all were, too. But if you reject help just because it might sting a little, you’re going to make your life even more miserable than it’s already going to be. And you’re better off leaving your spot to someone who will take advantage of what the program has to offer.
One final caution to those of you who are not from Mississippi: this is the South—for most of you, it will be the rural South—and things are different. That culture shock (particularly for those in MTC who are placed in rural areas) can be as difficult as the teaching stuff. You can read more about this here, but in my experience as someone Not From Round Here, the less I compare Mississippi to other places I’ve lived, and the more I make an effort to find things I love about it, the happier I am. Two years is a long time to be in a place you don’t like. At the risk of reducing a very complicated state to a few stereotypes, if you can’t picture yourself shopping at Wal-Mart or watching the latest Cannes Palme d'Or winner on Netflix instead of in a theater, understand that things are going to be just a little bit harder.
This reminds me of the "We are the Fighting Irish" ads they play during ND football games. Danielle Hall, Notre Dame and MTC alum, is featured in this recruitment/information video about the Mississippi Teacher Corps:
In my post on my goals for the year, I wrote that I had had a major wake-up call about my total lack of work-life balance when I missed the season premiere of The Office. At the time, I thought that would be my rock bottom.
The other night, I found some of my classroom tickets in my bed. That was worse. As my kids would say, isn't that, like, a metaphor or something?
In all seriousness, though, I don't have much to say about the teaching. It's still up and down. My room continues to be a jungle. (No A/C, but the heat works like a CHARM. Thanks, JPS.) The pressure is tough. I worry every day that I'm not giving my kids the best preparation for the monster of a test they will take April 29th. Some kids make me smile just thinking about them; some kids, I pray every day that I'll see their names on the suspension list. My classroom is often far messier than it should be, I've seriously slacked on parent phone calls in the last month or so, and I am far too sarcastic with my kids. I could go on, but that would just be depressing. And really, I've written about this before. Failure! It's everywhere. If I've learned anything about myself in the last few months, it's that I can fail every single day and still get up the next morning.
I've also realized that the best way to keep myself happy in the classroom is to do something with my kids that I find fun. Hence the lesson plans on books I'm reading. And sets: I always do a set, and it's usually good. It's my one consistent strength, and I do it because it makes my life a whole lot easier when I'm having fun. And of course, English II Olympics--after a particularly exhausting week of direct instruction, I tricked my kids into working independently for 100 minutes by running into the room with sweatbands on, blasting Eye of the Tiger from my computer, and telling them their pop quiz was cancelled and they would be competing against one another in six events (reading comp, grammar, etc). I chose three "judges" and they did all the grading and scoring for me. All I had to do was walk around and monitor. The kids saw the Slinkies in the prize bag and were more motivated than I've ever seen them. I had kids who never do work actually working after the bell. Best 70 bucks I ever spent.
Teaching stuff aside, what I really want to say is this: HEY! I HAVE (ALMOST) MADE IT TO CHRISTMAS AND I'M NOT DEAD YET! Things that helped me get through the past few months:
First, the small things--and by that, I mean food. In particular, tuna, Saturday morning pancakes, and take-out from Sal and Mookie's. And as my kids tell me, "Ms. Patterson, you be eating chocolate AGAIN?"
Second, planning-period lunches with Ms. Seip, and general fun with my awesome roommate and the Jackson boys (Dan, there is no one with whom I would rather make a left turn on red/clean up boric acid/huddle in front of a space heater).
Third, my fifth block. By far my most intelligent and well-behaved class, this is the group of kids that gets me through every other class. I can always count on them to be fun and just get it. I know it's kind of unfair to say this, but this is the class that serves as a glimpse of what teaching real English might be like.
On a more serious note: everyone tries to warn you how overwhelmed and stressed-out you feel in the first few months of teaching. Now, I can't speak for everyone, but YES. I went through weeks where I could barely sleep. The two things that are slowly helping me to avoid that terrible racing-heart feeling late at night are exercise and reading before bed. I've surprised myself by reading for fun more than I have since high school.
Still, the biggest surprise has not been the kids, the administration, or the fact that it is currently snowing outside. When school first started, I was so freaked out and desperate for comfort that I thought mental salvation lay in escapes to "the North"--whether that was phone calls to friends, the studied avoidance of the word "y'all," or, bizarrely, dinner at Olive Garden. Then one weekend I happened to pick up a few Mississippi-related books in Oxford. I was expecting to avoid them (or hate them) as part of my general desire to deny that this was all really happening to me. To my surprise, what I found as I made my way through them is that they made me feel more at home, both here in this state and in this new life in general. I'm not saying I didn't cry when I came back the first time after leaving (I did), or that I'm never frustrated by the often exaggerated but nevertheless appalling lack of efficiency down here (to Regions Bank: THIS WOULD NEVER HAPPEN IN THE NORTH). Still, it's calming to embrace this experience in all its craziness. Mississippi is indeed a sticky place, and I'm finding that I'm far happier here when I'm not spending my time frantically trying to rub off its many eccentricities.
One last thought before the holidays, for my fellow first-years:
Although I am not completely new to the teaching profession, I often feel similar to first-year teachers since I am in my first year at KIPP Delta in Helena, Arkansas. In certain ways (easy and plentiful access to resources, myriad intelligent and hard-working colleagues, high expectations on student behavior and academic output) KIPP is very different from the school I taught at the past two years in Belzoni, Mississippi. In other respects (socioeconomic and racial demographics, general lack of student motivation, administrative acquiescence to parents) it is quite similar to my previous school. In reflecting on this first semester, three major realizations that I have encountered come to mind. I will reflect on each briefly:
1) KIPP students are no different from other students.
The students that I work with in Helena are very similar to my students from Belzoni. If often feel like Helena belongs on the other side of the Mississippi River somewhere deep in Quitman or maybe Leflore County. It would closely resemble other large Delta towns like Greenwood, Clarksdale, and Indianola. Prior to moving to Helena I thought that the students at KIPP were better off socioeconomically than average Delta kids or that they had more committed parents than normal. I found that my students have no silver spoon in their mouth and few doting soccer moms in their house. Students misbehave just as much at KIPP as they do at other public schools. What has actually been even more surprising is the heightened level to which a number of students misbehave as they seem to attempt to either get expelled or get their parents to take them out of KIPP due to our high behavioral and academic expectations.
2) KIPP entails a major commitment on the part of teachers.
The commitment that KIPP teachers make to their students begins early. In looking at my Gmail Inbox, I count over 50 emails sent between myself and KIPP administrators and fellow teachers between the first week of June when I accepted their offer of employment and the last week of July when we began our professional development/orientation. This is in addition to (at least) weekly phone call check-ins while at home in New Jersey that my school director (principal, essentially) and I had regarding my assignments. Yup, assignments. With due dates, criteria and all. On my first day of professional development I had a beautiful new cell phone waiting for me at work. This phone is with all the time and the number goes out all over to colleagues, parents, students, and anyone else who would like to contact KIPP Delta's 7th grade math teacher and debate team coach.
My work day usually begins at 5:30 and I'm usually at school sometime between 6 and 6:30 a.m. I'm rarely the first (or second or third) teacher there. Prep periods are scant and I'm one of the lucky few teachers with a morning AND afternoon one. Multiple teachers have NO PREP PERIOD. I'm also fortunate in that I only teach one core subject. Other teachers teach two (i.e. math and science or English and social studies) and some teach two strands of a core subject in the same classroom (i.e. algebra to 20 kids on the right side of a classroom and geometry to 10 kids on the left side...simultaneously). Although the regular school day ends at 4 p.m. (recently shortened from 5 p.m.) most teachers are expected to do an hour of an extracurricular activity and/or an hour of tutoring in their subject area each evening. Thus, my work day usually ends at 5 p.m. due to daily math tutoring and on Tuesdays and Thursdays it ends at 6 p.m. due to my coaching the debate team. I'm usually home about an hour after my work day ends...although I live only a few minutes' drive from my school. Saturday school occurs bi-weekly throughout most of the school year and a three-week long summer school is mandated as well.
3) KIPP is the most innovative educational environment I have ever been a part of.
If you are psycho about teaching (and yes, essentially all MTCers fit into this category...at least all of those who last a year) then you will fit right in at KIPP. Far too often I felt that I was working much harder than my colleagues at my previous school. I would literally be laughed at for grading papers (even EXAMS). I was often the first teacher there and the last to leave. Students complained that my class was harder than their others. And on and on and on.... At KIPP, more or less all teaches are crazy, hard-working beasts. Almost everyone on the faculty is 20-something or barely in their 30's and from all corners of the nation. Together we are part of an amazing educational experiment that allows us to choose our own books and curricular material, teach using innovative instructional strategies, change the schedule on a daily basis as necessary (need an extra half hour for math? Just send a text to the phone of the ELA teacher), and sometimes even kidnap kids to get them to achieve at the very highest levels possible (ask me for stories). Where else could you have a school director mandate that teachers jump on a table in the cafeteria in front of the entire student body and sing and dance on cue or enter a classroom where intense pre-algebra instruction is occurring and mandate that every student smile at him while telling the teacher to hold up the arms of students who refuse to smile so they can be tickled into submission (both have happened to me this semester)? Anything but ordinary. Simply extraordinary.The movement is moving.
Chimaobi Amutah
EDSE 647
Book Review
Is Bill Cosby Right?: Or Has The Black Middle Class Lost Its Mind?
by Michael Eric Dyson
Each year in cities and towns large and small throughout the United States races for municipal office seem to boil down to two dominant, pervasive, and recurrent political issues: public safety and public education. Crime and education are so important to citizens because they concern not only the voters themselves but, most often, their invaluably precious children. Whether one looks at statistics outlining arrest and incarceration rates or dropout and literacy rates, the racial group doing the worst across the board is Blacks. Myriad theories have been put forth as to why this is the case and a plethora of articles and books have been published based on formal, scientific research as well as informal observation and reflection. In the book Is Bill Cosby Right?: Or Has The Black Middle Class Lost Its Mind? by venerable Georgetown University professor of sociology and cultural commentator Michael Eric Dyson, Dyson reflects on Bill Cosby’s take on why the community that he is a part of seems to fare so poorly in this society.
The book’s antecedents lie in a highly controversial speech that Bill Cosby delivered in May 2004 after receiving an award at a commemoration event paying homage to the historic Brown v. Board Supreme Court decision of 1954. In his speech, Cosby decried the state of Black youth today who speak improper English, fervently pursue careers as athletes and rappers, and lack the basic self-discipline and motivation to make anything of themselves, their families, and their communities. Cosby’s comments sparked a firestorm of responses, most critically from other Blacks who felt as though Cosby’s age, wealth, and fame have left him out of touch with the current youth of the Black community and thus disqualifies him from making such generalized and hyper-critical statements. Michael Eric Dyson was one such critic who has made a point of combatting Cosby’s harsh rhetoric.
In his book, Dyson, in true social scientist form, makes the case that extrinsic issues are more to blame for the myriad issues facing urban Black youth of today than a lack of quality parenting as Cosby professes. Dyson points to still-present and documented institutional racism that accounts for police arresting and charging Blacks at rates much higher than other racial groups as well as prosecutors seeking trial and incarceration more often than plea bargaining and judges issuing lengthier prison stays for Blacks. Dyson places Cosby in the same tradition as other elitist Blacks throughout U.S. history who were heavily critical of Blacks who they felt embarrassed the race, particularly in front of Whites--the “Afristocrats” as Dyson cleverly deems them. He makes these points all the more personal with regards to Bill Cosby by pointing to Cosby’s own struggles as a parent such as fathering a daughter out of wedlock and having another daughter publicly struggle with overcoming a drug addiction.
This book is highly pertinent to the work that we as educators do, particularly at my current school. The KIPP network of charter schools in general and KIPP Delta in particular prides itself on working in rough inner-city and rural communities with majority-Black and Latino students from low-income backgrounds. One of the hallmarks of KIPP is discipline and the lengths to which we go to have our students speak, sit, walk, and even read with proper etiquette is amazing. Visitors to our school from local farming groups to the Governor of Arkansas remark at how amazingly well-behaved, courteous, and well-spoken our students are. This behavior seems to fly in the face of their preconceived notion that our students would be the type of students that Bill Cosby lambasted so passionately back in 2004. Our poor, Black students are expected to be loud, speak improperly, get into fights, and not have high standardized test scores. Far too often, students internalize these expectations and they morph into self-fulfilling prophecies. Thus, Dyson is correct in saying that low-quality parenting is not the predominant factor contributing to the state of Black youth today. Sadly, a lack of exposure to their own possibilities and a dearth of self-esteem are more deserve a greater share of the blame.
I have convinced some of my kids that I killed a bear with my bare hands. And I'm a little proud of myself.
though i think arne duncan's speech on "teacher colleges" was pretty well-crafted, i don't know if i truly still understand the concept of a teacher's college. before i get into explaining why perhaps the most important thing could be to fund these institutions, i think i need to see if i actually believe in what they are aimed at doing.
I have mixed thoughts about Arne Duncan's feelings on schools of education. I agree with him that schools of education need to add rigor (I'm so sick of hearing that word used at work, but it does apply here). There's obviously some truth to the idea that schools of ed are a joke. To that end, I support the general idea of measuring effectiveness of various individual programs and shutting down those that do not produce effective classroom teachers.
I also agree with his point that teacher preparation programs need to include more hands-on practical training with feedback from veteran teachers as mentors. I would go a step further, though--those mentors need to come from a teaching background in the type of community where their apprentice teachers will be teaching. In other words, education professors who have never taught in a critical-needs school should not be evaluating student-teachers working in such a school. If there's anything I've realized in the last few months, it's that my high school bears no relation to the school where I work--it's a completely different environment, with different challenges. So if student-teachers are to get good feedback, it needs to come from a professor who has already gone through the same experiences to the greatest degree possible.
I'm more skeptical of Duncan's argument that content-area knowledge needs to be a prioritiy in schools of education. Now, I know that I was fortunate to receive both a K-12 and a college education that were better than most. But I wasn't an English major in college, and I still don't feel that my problems in the classroom stem from a lack of knowleldge within my subject area. Perhaps if I were teaching English III or IV, where students are reading novels, or another subject area, like history or science, where the focus is on content as much as skills, I would feel differently. But as it is, I would benefit far more from a course on how to teach reading skills than a literature seminar on various American novels.
My main concern with Duncan's argument, though, is that his emphasis on data analysis--which I absolutely agree is a valuable tool--may lead to the kind of focus on standardized tests that is causing me to tear my hair out every day. He's talking about data analysis on two levels. One, within the individual classroom. This I agree with--using data analysis to assess how well the students are grasping particular objectives, for example. But I'm concerned about the other data collection purpose--to compare performance across classrooms. This can only be accomplished through standardized testing. And that's why I have a problem with it. Teaching to a test is dangerous not only because teachers risk teaching concepts in so specialized a way that they have little meaning outside that particular test, but because it's so hard to make it interesting and engaging for students. And it is really, really stressful. Is there no other way to differentiate between good and bad teachers?
Oh, what I wouldn't give right now to be an MTC alum, happily sitting at a table at Bofield's, in this very video.
TWO DAYS.
Anyway.
Like everyone else, I loved Pete's speech. What an accurate summary of everything I feel on a daily basis. I laughed out loud at the line about Things I Would Rather Do/Have Done to Me Than Teach. For the past few weeks, it has been getting harder and harder to get out of bed and go to work. Lately, I feel like I've been having to put in an unusual amount of mental effort to get excited about my lessons. It's always nice to be reminded that that's just part of the deal.
His story of speaking at the funeral of one of his students was very humbling. First, it was so clear how important this student was to Pete, and how devastating her death was. I do care about my kids, but I don't know if I've had the kind of impact on them that Pete must have had to be asked to speak at his student's funerals. An honor you would never wish on anyone.
Laughter and tears aside, the real insight of Pete's speech is something that I know a lot of us have been thinking about lately--how just plain hard teaching is, and how it doesn't necessarily reward hard work. As Pete said, sometimes you work really hard, and it just blows up in your face. I've already had this experience numerous times this semester--I planned a great lesson, I killed myself to get a particular assignment graded quickly, and the kids don't respond or even notice. So many of us MTC-ers are classic overachievers, good at everything we do. And we see success as a function of hard work. But that just doesn't work with teaching. It's hard to have daily failures, and nowhere to hide when you do. So it's nice to be told by someone who has done this for two years that we are doing something, even if it doesn't look like it.
One last thing: as all the inside jokes (and laughter in response) show, this is one hell of a bonding experience. I think my favorite part of the video was just imagining our class in the same place in a year and a half. I'm so happy to be going through this with such a good bunch.
I agree on the whole with most everything Duncan has to say. I remember saying a lot of those things several years ago during my Rotary interview. Teaching as a profession has been too long like working in a fast food joint-- a low-paying job that's easy to get, that too often turns the preparation of wholesome sustenance into a slipshod assembly-line process...and more times than not ends up with too many of the people one would least want handling something important doing exactly that.
