Adventures in Arizona

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!)