Jeff for America

One week into August, and I think I’m finally ready to look back on my summer experience. It has been no easy task to keep up with these updates, but I want so badly to have some record of this special and experience heavy time. So this is my concerted effort to revive Jeff for America in some meaningful way…and perhaps keep it alive for some time to come.

Starting back in late June, I arrived in Philadelphia for what TFA calls Institute – the 6 week period for new teachers to enter a crash-course of sorts about teaching, learning and working with students. During Institute, new teachers ( or corps members) are expected to take on a lot in a short time span. We teach summer school and attend professional development sessions that give us insight into best teaching practices and helps prepare us for our two-year commitment starting in the fall. For the last six weeks, I have been isolated from the world, writing lesson plans, finding housing and learning how to be a good teacher. It was grueling, but I loved it. At times, I found it hard to overcome the negative energy from people whose experience was different from my own, but managed to maintain a healthy attitude about the extreme circumstance I found myself in.

I figured the best way to explain this experience would be through a quick photo-journal. The below are pictures from a day in the life of a new teacher at institute.

I started the summer waking up at 5 AM in order to get ready, go to breakfast and make it to the buses by 6:45. I quickly learned it shouldn’t take more than 20 minutes to get ready, and by the third week, I was getting up closer to 6 AM. I was never late to the bus – not once!

Oh breakfast…this was the Temple University dining commons. The food was pretty horrible, so I usually ate cereal and a bagel. Most mornings I met up with my friends and gobbled my food before rushing off to the bus.

After breakfast, we hurried to the parking lot where 20 yellow school buses were waiting to whisk 600 teachers to their respective summer school. I always hated this part of the day – it was humid and gross and I just wanted to fall back asleep. Sometimes I just waited outside the bus until they left at 7AM, greeting people and complaining about the weather. Sometimes I just got on and took a 10 minute nap. A funny story – one of the corps members at another high school left a session to go to the bathroom and didn’t return for another 40 minutes. When she got back, she admitted to unknowingly falling asleep on the toilet. This stuff is for real – people fell asleep all over the place. I was even known for a little shut in mid-day.

On the drive to school, which took about 15 minutes, I often played my iPod and looked into the city passing by. One of my favorite parts of the journey was this mural. It kind of looks like a man taking a bite out of that baby. But I think that’s why I liked it so much. One thing I love about Philadelphia are its many murals. The city is the most ‘muraled’ in the world – with hundreds of murals on nearly every block, it makes a sometimes chaotic and dingy place feel more like a home. I’ll do a post about these later.

Finally there – we arrived at school by 7:20 AM, just enough time to prep and get ready for 8 AM class. I taught at the Philadelphia High School for the Creative & Performing Arts (also called CAPA). I was very lucky to be placed here, because out of the 600 new teachers, only about 60 were at CAPA. The building itself was beautiful…and it had air conditioning! A big plus considering the heat some days. Most schools go without AC during the summer. In fact, it got so hot the district called a ‘heat day’ and canceled classes.

Once inside, we had to sign in and check our mail before reporting to our small teams. These teams included people in our subject area that we worked with and often taught with. My collaborative team was small – only three of us – and we were assigned African American History. With only three people, our teaching schedules were a little different that most four people teams. This meant we each taught 1 hour a day for three/four weeks, but also taught a 2 hour block the fourth week. We had to come up with a lesson plan for each 1 hour period, meaning the 2 hour block week was kind of hellish. Writing a typical 5-step lesson plan took me about 3 hours (including copy and prep time).

These are my teaching partners – David & Debbie. And that’s me in the middle making one of my faces.

That’s my classroom – it’s the view I had every day (you can imagine the students). I had about 20 kids total, depending on the day. A lot of them weren’t there most days – they had a lot of reasons for being absent, but it only ended up hurting their chances of passing the class. In four weeks, every day counted. I made an attendance chart for the classroom and wrote ‘History Happens Everyday – Be Here!’ They rolled their eyes when I showed them, but I really thought it was clever.

Here is my poster. Not too fancy, considering we didn’t have a wealth of resources. In fact, I had to teach myself African American history without a common textbook or district resources. I mostly used the internet and books from the library – done like a true urban school teacher. In the end, I found incentives like the attendance chart only worked for some students. I still need to develop my ideas for the school year, but I learned a lot from stuff like this.

After teaching in the morning, we took classes at the high school about everything from classroom management techniques to understanding literacy, from behavior tracking to diversity training. It was often the sleepiest part of the day, and lasted for about 6 hours. We took most sessions in the library (above) and worked in teams. I learned a lot through sessions, and I think they really had their stuff together. They take things VERY seriously, and it shows. These professional development courses will continue throughout the next two years, but will be much less intensive or frequent.

This was a painting that hung in the foye of the school. I looked at it everyday and kind of fell in love with it. He just looks either really bored with you, or really interested. I feel like it captures so many of the faces I saw this summer.

And the school day ended at 4:30 – we took the yellow school buses back to the dorms and started work.

For the next 5 hours or so I worked at my desk, printed worksheets and made hundreds upon hundreds of copies. It was a crime the amount of copies I made – and I will not, I repeat WILL NOT, make so many copies during the regular school year. I became wayyy to dependent on them every day. Nonetheless, this is when the real work began. Planning for the next day was always fun, but there was a sense of urgency that made the evenings a bit edgy. I successfully went to bed before midnight the entire summer. Many people (including my roommate) routinely stayed up until 2 or 3 AM prepping for the next day. I need my sleep, so I made sure to stay on top of my work. It ended up being a pretty easy thing to manage.

So that is Institute. In so many pictures, I think it shows the average day quite well. Now just imagine doing that for four weeks straight – it got to be kind of crazy. About 20-30 people dropped out during the summer – out of about 600. One of my very good friends, Jenna, ended up leaving after Institute because she wanted to teach back at her old school in the midwest. It was sad to see her go, but everyone has their reasons. I really respected her for staying, since so many people just abandon their co-teachers to do all their work. I can’t imagine!

All in all – an amazing summer. I learned so much in so little time – and feel almost ready for that first day of school in September. Whereas before I couldn’t really carry on a conversation about teaching, I can now babble on for hours, comparing methods, asking real questions and making critiques of this or that. Teach for America accomplished what they set out to do, with me anyway. I’m taking what I can from this summer, and I’ll keep learning as I go. I think that’s the idea.

- Jeff