Eric is the Executive Vice President of Growth, Development, and Partnerships at Teach For America.
In New York City, kids in the eighth grade have the opportunity to apply to high schools across the city. For my students, that meant the potential to avoid their local “zoned” school which had less than a 50% graduation rate. Helping my students get into high schools that would put them on a path to choose college was my focus in my classroom.
One of my students, Melissa, was most proactive in seeking help. She was an old soul and my most serious student; a diligent worker, always on time, homework always completed, focused intently on any task at hand. In fact, it was a conversation earlier that year with Melissa which accelerated my learning curve as a teacher: After a particularly tenuous day of classroom management, Melissa stayed back and was the last one to leave my room. Poised and confident, she stopped, looked me directly in my beleaguered eyes, and told me I needed to get control of my classroom and teach better, faster. In her words, “get it together.” She was right and I needed to hear it. Reflecting on that interaction helped me to find my ‘teacher self’ and to lead my classroom with more confidence.
One afternoon in the spring, Melissa was in my classroom after school working on her high school entrance portfolio while I graded papers. After a few questions about grammar for her essay, Melissa asked me if I was gay. In the moments of silence while I gathered my thoughts for a response she continued that her uncle was, that she didn’t care, and that she thought people should do what makes them happy as long as it didn’t bother anyone—and being gay didn’t bother her.
Photo courtesy of Eric Scroggins
Blair Mishleau, a first-year Twin Cities corps member, teaches writing in Minneapolis. His post marks National Coming Out Day, which promotes a safe world for LGBT individuals to live truthfully and openly.
“I hate gay people.”
“Mr. M, would you ever be friends with a gay person? I wouldn’t!”
“Yeah…that’s messed up.”
The calm, young voices rang out during my homeroom period. A writing brainstorm about Barack Obama had brought up my ninth graders’ strong feelings towards the president’s stance on marriage equality.
In the time between the first hateful statement and my response, every education-related diversity conversation I’ve had flashed before my eyes. I could recall dozens of deep discussions about cultural competency, working with low-income communities, and finding ways to contact home when family members don’t speak English.
But when it came to responding to this—a direct statement of hate towards my sexual orientation—the till came up empty. Authentic advice on dealing with being gay in the classroom has been, for me, few and far between.
Photo courtesy of jglsongs via Flickr Creative Commons
Vanessa Lugo was recently honored by the White House's Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanics for her service to education. We have reblogged her reflection on receiving the Champion of Change award in full with her permission.
There are no words to adequately express how deeply honored I am to be receiving the Champions of Change award. As a Hispanic female, a child of immigrants, and an English language learner, I feel that my entire life I have been preparing to engage in this work in our community.
Upon graduating from UCLA in 2010, I entered the profession of teaching through Teach for America; an alternative licensure program founded by Wendy Kopp, whose mission is to place high achieving college graduates, as teachers in our highest need schools. I was placed as a bilingual educator, meaning I could be hired as anything from a Pre-K teacher to a high school Spanish teacher.
I will never forget my first and only teaching interview with the staff at Cole Arts and Science Academy. It lasted for about fifteen minutes over Skype. It was the last question and my answer to that question that changed my life: Why should we hire you over anyone else? My response: I see myself reflected in the students that I will be teaching. I grew up in a low-income neighborhood and I received free lunch at school. My parents are immigrants from Mexico and when I began school they did not speak English and neither did I. I want to demonstrate to my students and families that—there are no limits to what they can accomplish. Querer es poder. Where there is a will, there is a way.
Photo by KF via WikiCommons
Olubunmi Fashusi is a member of the 2011 Teach For America—Baltimore corps.
Between 8:40 and 8:50 a.m. on the third day of school, I sat at my desk with my head nestled into the palms of my hands. I was feeling overwhelmed and defeated. I had just finished testing a sixth grade student whose family arrived from Vietnam in July. Throughout the exam, I watched in anguish as he struggled to understand what he was being asked to say, read, and write. I wanted to stop the test so he wouldn’t have to struggle further, but I didn’t. Having the test results would help me understand exactly what he needed to learn, and that would be more beneficial in the long run.
Photo Credit: Alex E. Proimos via Flickr Creative Commons
Lora Cover, ’96 Washington, D.C., works on TFA’s Human Assets team.
I first met Avi in Moody Towers. For those of you that weren’t TFA corps members circa the mid ‘90s, that was where every corps member lived during institute in Houston. We were meeting our fellow D.C. corps, playing an uncomfortable game of two truths and a lie, and trying to sound cooler than we were. I highly doubt I succeeded. Avi, on the other hand, was cute and confident, seemingly the opposite of how I felt in that first week as a corps member.
People love institute. They have fond memories of being part of a larger group of like-minded people living and working together. I wasn’t one of those people. I spent the summer incredibly anxious. How in the world was I going to start teaching on my own in the fall when teaching in a collaborative group was so hard? What if Teach For America had made a mistake selecting me? Would I actually have a placement in D.C. at the end of institute? (We were routinely reminded to “bend like a willow tree” when discussing things like where we would be living in the fall.) So even though I wanted to impress the cute, confident guy over Blimpie subs, I was way too preoccupied to even have a conversation with him.
Lora Cover with her family. Photo courtsey of Lora Cover.
Robert Rigonan is a member of the 2012 Teach For America-Las Vegas Valley corps.
In the dawn before my first day as a full-time teacher, I couldn’t help but revert to the Robert of eight years before. In my childhood, the final days of summer were spent playing video games into the early morning, sleeping in, and watching TV all day. I needed to treasure my finals moments of freedom—the calm before the storm. And every year, on the night before the first day of school , I’d have trouble sleeping, tossing and turning for hours on end.
Luckily, I grew out of playing video games all night and watching TV all day (although I haven’t grown out of the temptation to do so). The final days before my first day of school as a teacher have been spent tackling a never-ending to-do list. Still, the strange but familiar mixture of nervous, excited, scared, and anxious that bubbled in my blood during my schoolyard days remained the same. As I finalized my syllabus, tightened up my classroom rules and procedures, and thought about how my broad classroom vision will apply to my students, my mind raced with an infinite number of thoughts and emotions.
Credit: Eric Molina, via Flickr Creative Commons
Jessica Eastman Stewart, a 2005 Bay Area corps member, brings us the first post in a new series: TFA Love Stories. Jessica met that special someone at Teach For America institute, and while institute is not quite the "hopeless place" of the Rihanna song, it's probably not where Jessica expected to find love. Stay tuned for more TFA Love Stories in the coming weeks.
Teach For America institute: it brings back a variety of memories for all of us who have participated over the last few decades—good, bad, inspiring, intense, emotional, exhausting, and more.
I don’t remember much from my first day of induction in the Bay Area, but I do remember my first interactions with many of the staff and corps members that I am fortunate to call my friends today. One of those interactions was with a guy with shoulder-length bright red hair—not an easy guy to forget.
Photo courtsey of Jessica Stewart. From left to right, back to front: Amanda Klein, Jonathan Klein, Dana Russo, David Silver, Amy Carozza, Andrew Sullivan, Greg Holtz, Mike Sawyer, Greg Klein, Alicia Hardy, Rebecca Miller, Liz O'Hare, Jessica Stewart, Jonathon Stewart, Emily Novick, Sarah Pratt, Paymon Zarghami, Neena Dass, Allison Henkel. Alumni from the Bay Area, LA, Philly, New York, and Newark regions were present!
The Bay corps headed to LA at the end of the week for institute—we bonded in our shared dorm throughout the summer over lesson plans, printers that never quite met our needs, a rollercoaster of steep learning curve highs and lows, and the SoCal heat. When we got back to the Bay, four of us were lucky to find a beautiful house in East Oakland to rent together. One of my roommates was that hard-to-forget redhead.
Hi, I'm @BexwithanX (Bex Young) and I manage social media at Teach For America. Every summer, thousands of new Teach For America corps members descend on cities across the U.S. For 5 weeks, they live, eat, and breathe teaching. They also laugh, bond (trust falls, anyone?), and chug gallons of coffee as they go through a grueling but rewarding training process. This might be the moment where you ask: What is Teach For America? and/or, why do these individuals give up their summer and the sleep!? Well, Teach For America takes our most promising future leaders and asks them to teach in high-need schools for at least two years. Our teachers have the incredible opportunity to take on one of our countries most challenging jobs and help kids learn, grow, and become future leaders themselves. It wont be easy, but it will be worthwhile.
We believe education is the most pressing issue facing our nation. On Pass the Chalk, we'll share our takes on the issues of the day, join the online conversation about education, and tell stories from classrooms, schools, and communities around the nation.
Learn more about Teach For America.
We want to hear from you. If you have a question, a comment, or an idea, please get in touch »
The thoughts, ideas, and opinions expressed on Pass the Chalk are the responsibility of individual bloggers. Unless explicitly stated, blog posts do not represent the views of Teach For America as an organization.
TFA-Related Blogs
Admissions Blog
TeacherPop
Teach For Us
Elsewhere
City Year Blog
CNN: Schools of Thought
Eduwonk
Ed Week Blogs
Flypaper
Good: Education
Gotham Schools
The Hechinger Report
Huffington Post:Education
Impatient Optimists
KIPP Blog
KQED: Mind/Shift
New Schools Venture Fund Blog
New York Times: Schoolbook
Taking Note
Time: School of Thought
World Bank: EduTech
Copyright 2012 Teach For America, Inc. All rights reserved
Teach For America logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of Teach For America, Inc.
Teach For America was named one of America's top 100 Ideal Employers in Universum's 2011 American Student Survey.
Teach For America was named one of Fortune magazine's top 100 employers to work for.
Teach For America thanks our National Partners for their generous support.
