Training in Phoenix Institute

Okay so it took me a ridiculous amount of time to figure out how to get back to this page and add a post, so I am officially technologically challenged (though that may have been official for a while).

I have now been in Phoenix for about two weeks training here at the Teach for America Institute. It's been one of the most intense experiences in my life, in terms of workload. Mentally and emotionally I haven't found it as challenging as it was supposed to be, but it is entirely draining physically. The corps has no qualms with demanding every waking moment of each teacher-to-be. We've all joked that we are at teacher "boot camp," but to be honest I'm not sure that's too far off base.

We all groggily responded to our 5:20am alarms on the first Monday morning, only to be rushed through a sack lunch assembly line with our "drill sargents" yelling at us through megaphones: "6:15 bus will be leaving in two minutes. You should be sprinting right now. Go! Go! Go!" I remember attempting to balance a loaded backpack, an overflowing purse, and a sweater to combat the ridiculous amount of air conditioning that people use here, all while struggling not to break an ankle in my new high heeled "professional" shoes. I had the brown paperbag lunch sack hanging from my teeth as I reached for my ice pack and grabbed the food items available for the day, hastily shoving them into my little blue lunch bag before running for the bus that had warned us it would "wait for no one."

I never before had an idea what it means to put in a "full day" of work, either. I now get an average of 3-4 hours of sleep a night, staying up til the wee hours of the morning working on perfecting the next day's lesson plan, and getting up at the crack of dawn to present it. Our staff often scolds us for looking too tired during the day's sessions, but we are given no time to get things done. We are in school (either giving or taking classes) from 7:00am until 5:00pm, and then we often have night sessions for an hour or two. With the detail they require of our lesson plans, it often takes up to 6 hours to complete just one, and most nights we have a final lesson plan and two rough plans due the following day. I remember one day that I worked straight from 7am until 2am without a single break or moment to myself. At least my late nights aren't due to procrasination or poor time management for once!

Despite the craziness, I am loving every minute of this. For once I understand why people can get so caught up in their careers. I am so passionate about teaching. I am one of four fifth grade summer school teachers and I am so in love with my kids. Jahziel, or "peewee," as he is affectionately called, looks like a second grader with his tiny stature and huge eyes and has no idea what's going on half the time, but he has huge ambitions for his future. Ivanna doesn't talk above a whisper, but she aces everything we throw at her. Marylu is really struggling to pass, but she participates every day more than the others. Jordan went from being at the bottom of the class on her math pre-test to being the only one to ace the midterm exam. We made a class bulletin board the other day called "So that one day I can...". We put our kids' pictures up on it and they finished the sentence with their personal goals (i.e. "...be a teacher", "...be an astronaut", "...go to college") and drew pictures of their "future professional bodies." Jahziel drew a mustache for himself. Looking at that board, even though it's a little cheesy, totally inspires me every day. I'm working so that those goals can become realities, so these kids can have choices in life. I'm busting my butt every day so that in a school that provides little to know resources in a very poor neighborhood, they know that someone believes in them. And I'm surprised at how much I do. I know that I'm starting to gush and make this sound like an inspirational film, but I have grown to care so much about these children's futures. I hold myself responsible for this part of their education, this checkpoint along their way. When I grade their assessments, I never think "wow, this kid tanked it. they should have studied more." It's always "Shoot, I failed them here. What should I have done differently." I never realized that teachers, when they grade papers, are grading themselves, rather than their students. It's strange all the different perspective I'm getting here. I definitely appreciate my former teachers on a whole new level now.

Other than teaching, I don't have much of a life right now. haha. I have one day a week that I get to myself, and the majority of that day is often spent catching up on sleep. Today I was able to go out in the 110 degree Phoenix sun and tube down a mountain river, which was pretty great. We were floating past towering seguaro (or however you pronounce it) cacti and wild horses. I also get Wendy's once a week to treat myself. It's a pretty big thing in my life. Haha.

Thanks for everyone who calls to check up on me and who keeps me in their prayers. It means a lot. I miss you all. And now it's time for the joy that is sleep.