Adventures in Arizona

Okay, so I obviously haven’t kept to my vow of weekly posts, but here’s a life update in two minutes or less!

I am now into the fourth week of class, and have had a really good time so far! Every day has a challenge, but none have been insurmountable. My four classes (Pre-Algebra gifted 7th, 8th grade math, and two 7th grade math sections) all have their own character and it has taken me a little while to get used to each group, as each requires a bit different management style.

By the end of the week all of my classes will have finished their first unit and tested on it…I can’t believe how quickly the time has flown! The first set of benchmarks (district-wide standardized tests) are only three and a half weeks away.

Outside of class I have spent a lot of time planning for the short and long-term, but have also gotten the chance to get of my teaching bubble a bit. Ashley and I have gone hiking the past two Saturdays, and we have gotten to spend a few hours at least once a week out and about in town.

I know this is a rambling post, but I wanted to get caught up, so I can start writing about more specific topics and adventures (hence the title!). I’ll leave you today with a slideshow of my room as well as one of our mountain pictures….Oh, and the pictures of my room are from a couple of weeks ago, today I had students put some more stuff on my boards!

So today was the big day. Our 20 students took their final exam, and 17 passed the class (final was only worth 20%). We have one more day tomorrow that is enrichment. In other news I have been officially hired by Glendale Elementary School District and will be teaching 7th and 8th grade math. The school is 10 miles/20 minutes from my apartment. I am going to use the words of one of my students to finish out this post, but will write more soon. This student was the only one to respond to a post-test option of writing something to us, her teachers:

All three of you are great teachers. For the past 6 years or so I hated math teachers and never even tried in class or respected the teacher at that. But for once I actually tried and cared because you guys are cool and I enjoyed learning from all of you. I know wherever you go next and teach your students will love you. I really hope I passed this test but I really doubt it. I forgot most of what I learned and my mind kept wandering and I just found out my good friend relapsed yesterday and I let that get to me while taking this test so I apologize because I know I didn’t put my all into it but thanks for being awesome teachers and I wish you all luck with whatever in live, being teachers or not.

(Signed)

Although just barely, she passed the class

Once again it is Sunday before I have sat down to update you all, but it was quite the week last week! My interview a week ago went very well, and I hope to have news on it by the end of the week (some action is needed at the school district level before I can hear anything).

My second week in the classroom went very well, with a mean score of 75% on the midterm assessment. The students are definitely warming up to me, as they were starting to get squirmy by the end of the week. Tuesday was marked by a surprise “TFA” which in this case stands for Totally Free Afternoon! (More on acronyms later, but its safe to say that TFA is obsessed with them Then, we got Friday off for the holiday, and Ashley was down here from Thursday night – Sunday night to help me get the apartment set up. We now have a bedroom, desk/office, dining table, TV, and more! We bought a sofa on Saturday and it will be delivered next Saturday, and at that point the apartment will be pretty much complete…except for all the boxes still in the garage!

On Saturday night we were two of 50,000 locals at Tempe Town Lake for food and fireworks on a very hot night….in the mid-90s still around 9 pm. Now, believe it or not, it’s Sunday night again and I have printed tomorrow’s materials, finalized Tuesday, and have drafts done for Wednesday and Thursday. Which means I only have four real lessons left to plan! (Friday, then Monday – Wednesday of next week. Next Thursday is the final and Friday is an enrichment day.)

As I said, the end is in sight….maybe I will even have time for a mid-week post this week!

Although I’m now done with two weeks of Institute, I’ve only been through one week of actual teaching….and boy what a week! My 22 students are from a wide range of backgrounds and all have their own personalities. There have been up days and down days. On Thursday only about 20% of the students mastered the objective I was teaching, but on Friday we achieved 100% mastery! It was definitely a good way to end the week.

After teaching in the mornings, we continue to have classes in the afternoon and some evenings. I am definitely learning a lot, and the great thing is that I can apply what I learn right away in my classroom. In other news, I picked up keys to my apartment (ours actually…Ashley’s and mine) on Thursday night and had our ReloCube with all of our Minnesota belongings delivered on Friday. Eager to make it feel like home, I spent Saturday morning at Ikea and bought a bedroom full of furniture and put the bed together last night, then slept on it! The whole apartment thing is definitely making me feel more like a grown-up!

This week is a short week, as we get July 3 off. I don’t know if I will try to go somewhere next weekend or just relax and continue to set up my new home. Today (Sunday) will be a big day of lesson planning, and also a job interview this afternoon….stay tuned for the results…

The first week of Institute was heavily focused on providing us with the basic toolkit we need in order to be prepared to step into the classroom for the first time, and that time will be tomorrow! I will be teaching Algebra IA to 22 students in a credit recovery program (i.e. these students have already taken the class once and failed it). I am part of a team of three corps members, and we each teach the class for one 45 minute block every day. The curriculum is pretty much set out for us, but we are responsible for individual lesson planning, grading, and classroom management.

So for the next four weeks I will be teaching in the morning and continuing to have sessions in the afternoon to continue my own education. To give you an idea of the craziness of the schedule, here’s an average day:
5:15 am Wake-up
5:45 am Pick up sack lunch and eat breakfast
6:10 am On the bus
6:15 – 6:55 am Arrive at school
7:10 am – 7:30 am “Duty” while students arrive
8:20 – 9:10 am Observe one of my co-teachers
9:10 – 9:55 am Teach!
10:45 – 12:15 pm Session
12:15 – 1 pm Lunch
1 – 4 pm Sessions
4:15 – 5 pm Bus ride back to ASU
5:15 – 7 pm Personal time (i.e. dinner and work-out)
7 – 9:30 pm Prep for next day and write lesson plans (drafts are due 2 x week)!

Yikes! I know it seems like a lot on paper, and it’s a lot in real life too. I’ve finished my lesson visions (which come before the actual plans) for the rest of the week and now really need to finish prepping for first day of school stuff tomorrow. But I’ll leave you with some numbers

35,000 Applications to TFA this year
4,100 Matriculating Corps Members
575 Corps Members at Phoenix Institute (includes Greater New Orleans, Southern Louisiana, New Mexico, Phoenix)
145 ’09 Corps Members in the Phoenix Region
894 Students who will be on-campus at my school on Monday
99 hottest temperature since I’ve been in Phoenix….yes, its unnaturally cool!
1 goal of eliminating education inequity!

Cheesy, I know, but I think they put something in the food here to help with the indoctrination. I promise to write by Wednesday about my first days of school (for you TFAers out there, I’m adding it to my action plan!)

I have just finished my first five days as an official member of Teach for America, and it has been a great experience. Titled “Induction,” these five days were all about getting to know my fellow corps members in Phoenix and learning more about the organization as a whole. The week began with a rousing welcome from ’08 corps members as I arrived at the hotel. Similar to Gustie Greeters at orientation, but a tad more laid back.

I was originally slated to have an interview with a school district this week but it fell through. The “placement landscape” in Phoenix is looking much better than even a few weeks ago, and I feel confident that I will get a job, likely in the next week or so. The majority of ’09 corps members have at least a tentative placement.  For those of you who don’t know, I have to be hired and paid by a school district, TFA simply provides extra support.

My other major accomplishment of the week was finding an apartment for Ashley and me. It is a wonderful 2 bedroom townhouse-style apartment in central Phoenix, just off a highway (if you want to know exactly where it is, email me, but this is the world wide web after all, so I’m not just going to broadcast it!).

Sunday morning I will leave the hotel and check-in to my dorm room at ASU-Tempe which will be my home for the next five weeks of Institute. While Induction is all about relationship-building, organizational information, and enthusiasm; Institute can be described as boot camp for teachers. I’ll find out my daily schedule tomorrow and share with another blog post. It’s my goal to make posts twice a week through institute, and use this as my main outlet to the real world. I hope you enjoy it!