I’ll never forget my first year teaching. The day I arrived on campus, I was called to the cafeteria for a new teacher meeting. Over the next hour, I was given the third grade standards, provided an overview of the assessment my students needed to pass by the end of the year, trained on school procedures, and handed the curriculum, which detailed what I was expected to teach each day.
As a new teacher I eagerly welcomed the guidance. But as the year went on, my initial enthusiasm was replaced with frustration. After a few weeks, I realized that only four of my twenty students were on grade level; yet, I wasn’t given any leniency to modify the curriculum. One day in mid-November, after watching my students struggle through a particularly challenging lesson, I went to my neighboring teacher for advice, and she told me quite simply to “close my door, do what I thought was best, and hope no one noticed.”
Photo by Dankarl via Wikimedia Commons
Ebony and Ivory was an instant hit for Stevie Wonder and Sir Paul McCartney in 1982. Ostensibly about piano keys, the song cheerfully tackles race relations in America. The song is short on lyrics, and frequently repeats “we all know that people are the same wherever we go.” That’s a nice thought, but really? I think we might be oversimplifying.
I remember being referred to, dismissively, as “black” in kindergarten by a classmate staring with confusion at my brown skin. It was my first indication that my interactions with race would involve others’ perceptions of who I was and what I was capable of doing.
Photo by Nathan Taylor at Unlocking Potential
Five links that made us think this week.
The Super Bowl may be over, but teachers are still using the big game to reinforce grammar skills for their students. A group of 2nd graders in Buffalo, N.Y. had no shame in correcting several tweets from NFL players. One of the offenders was San Francisco 49er Chris Culliver who tweeted: “I pray to God I’m never dieing broke.” Culliver might be great on the field, but his grammar skills are in need of urgent improvement. It’s refreshing to see that in this age of tweet-speak some kids still know their GUMS.
In other news, a Pew study released on Thursday described by The NY Times as “the most detailed study of adult children of immigrants in the modern era of American immigration,” revealed that Americans who were born to immigrants arriving in the 1960s have outperformed their foreign-born contemporaries as well as the general population in the the area of education attainment. Thirty-six percent of these second-generation Americans have attained at least a bachelor’s degree, compared to only 29 percent of foreign-born Americans, and 31 percent of the general population.
Photo by Mando vzl via WikiCommons
Tracy Dunbar works on Teach For America’s Human Assets team. She recently relocated back to her hometown of Brooklyn, New York.
When someone asks me where I work, I usually say I work for an “education reform non-profit organization.” But if I ask myself, “Am I an education reformer?,” my gut reaction is “No.” I have very little in common with the Joel Klein’s, Dave Levin’s and Mike Feinberg’s of the world. I do, however, have much in common with the students we are educating in low-income neighborhoods across the country.
I lived a relatively sheltered life in the housing projects of Brooklyn—a single-parent home, church every Sunday, playing outside until the streetlights came on—but I was not able to escape the realities of living in an environment of highly-concentrated poverty.
View of Boulevard Housing Projects in East New York, Brooklyn. Picture taken by Thomas Brice, Tracy’s former classmate and a professional photographer.
When I was laid off from my charter school in the twin cities for financial reasons, my family first blamed, of all people, the president of the United States.
“I thought Obama was supposed to support schools?” my cousin, a Romney supporter, asked me in an angry tone when my news broke.
The past semester has been ridiculously enlightening to the complex and sometimes-unpredictable state of charter school finances. It has been among the most poignant lessons I’ve learned in my Teach For America experience.
Photo by Ildar Sagdejev via WikiCommons
More and more individuals and organizations are recognizing that education is no longer just about a child’s K-12 experience. The reality is that student achievement doesn’t just happen because of a good elementary school experience. It happens when early childhood experiences include social, literacy, language, physical, and cognitive development.
As more research comes to the surface about just how critical early childhood learning is on overall outcomes for students, it certainly makes you think about what really needs to happen to create catalytic change. But is there an age that could be too young for school? Should it be mandatory for three and four year olds to attend 180 days of school? Who should be responsible for the cost? This is the conversation that states like Iowa are having right now. People are recognizing that knowing your abc’s, how to share, read, talk and tie your shoes are not just basic skills. They are critical skills.
Photo by RajatKansal via WikiCommons
Four days, 3,500 LGBTQQIA folks. One hotel. I recently spent a long weekend at the gayest conference in the nation: Creating Change. Hosted in Atlanta, Georgia, I was inundated by nearly 300 workshops, caucuses, plenary sessions, leadership sessions, a special message from Obama and a whole bunch of networking to boot.
You may be asking what such a conference has to do with educational inequity? The answer: everything.
Photo courtesy of Blair Mishleau
On Sunday, I’ll watch two groups of men seek their own chance to make history in Super Bowl XLVII. As a football coach, I’ll watch each team’s strategy, their formations, the players’ techniques. As a Teach For America alum, I’ll be thinking about two lessons I learned when I joined the corps in 2005, and that I will try to instill in my players at Cornell.
Photo courtesy of Dave Archer
As a native of New York City and an alumna of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, I’ve seen my fair share of die-hard sports fans. On any given day in New York, it wouldn’t surprise me to see a person walking down the street sporting a Yankees fitted cap, a Mets t-shirt, or a Carmelo Anthony Knicks jersey. I even own a “No Sleep Till Brooklyn” Nets t-shirt. I spent most of my undergraduate career seeing others in Carolina blue, whether at a basketball game, a house party or in class.
But none of my experiences in New York or Chapel Hill braced me for “Purple Fridays” at my school, aka the capital of Ravens Nation. I had never witnessed such loyalty and devotion to a sports team within a community, until I started teaching here in Baltimore City. On any given Purple Friday, I see kids in all grades, from Pre-Kindergarten through eight, sporting a Ravens jersey, hoodie, t-shirt, or a purple accessory (like a bead necklace or bracelet) to display their support for their hometown team. At my school, the most important names on Monday mornings are Lewis, Flacco, Rice and Smith.
Photo courtesy of Olubunmi Fashusi
My two years as a Teach For America corps member presented me with an understanding that is both a gift and a powerful burden, one that I carry with me everyday. This understanding is that our country contains within its first-world borders millions of individuals who cannot meet the daily demands of 21st century life, whether that means paying the utility bill, landing a job that pays a living wage, or finding an excellent education for their children.
Today, millions of hard working, low-income Americans find themselves trapped on the lowest rungs of our socio-economic ladder, unable to traverse an increasingly impassable wealth gap. A 2011 study by the Economic Mobility Project found that the United States has a lower rate of social mobility than most developed countries. Empirically speaking, the American Dream may be more attainable elsewhere.
Photo by Frydolin via WikiCommons
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 is a proud member of the AmeriCorps national service network.
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.
