"Mrs. P"....or in some cases "Mr. P"

My first week as an official teacher has come to an end...and to say that I am exhausted would be an incredible understatement. This experience has truly been a roller coaster of emotions. I have absolutely fallen in love with my 11 fourth grade students, they are so sweet, eager to learn, and honestly in love with their teachers! We have "shout-outs" in our class where we are supposed write encouraging notes to our classmates and post them so that we feel more like a team. Yesterday, we gave them some time to post their shout outs, and the picture above is part of what I found after class! We may need to go over that I am Mrs. P...not Mr. P, but they are so sweet!

Moments like this certainly leave me on a high, and I really feel comfortable and enjoy teaching in front of the class. The students have been well behaved the majority of the time (I have had to issue some "consequences" on our thermometer of behavior, which kinda breaks my heart sometime, but must be done!) I can't believe how much I have learned about math after studying up for all my lessons.

The heartbreaking aspect of this experience has been the reality of where these kids are (or aren't) academically. These kids are so and really want to learn. They are craving a classroom that provides them the education they deserve. One of the toughest, but also the part of summer school is called Academic Intervention Hour. The three fourth grade teachers each take a small group and work intentionally on math and reading with their group. I have the lower-level reading group. My first day I brought my short story and had some discussion questions all picked out for my small group. I was really excited to finally do some reading with my students and to share my love of reading with them. They listened intently as I read the first page and then they were going to rotate and take turns reading aloud. This was great...until I realized the could hardly get through simple sentences. My strategy had to change, and the past few days I have been drilling them with phonics exercises. R, A, and Q (my small group students) soaked this up and truly helped me help them. Today we worked on the sounds "ch" and "ck" and by the end they were saying "Ms. P, we got this it's so easy!" Well I am definitely getting to bed early tonight...more stories to come!

End of Week 1 in the Delta

Well, week 1 in the Mississippi delta has come to an end....only 4 more to go! Yesterday was super exciting because we finally got to meet some of the students we will be teaching for the next four weeks in summer school. Our students came in the morning to take a test that determines their reading level. Each of us teachers would take one student at a time and administer various steps of the test. The dire academic issues facing many of these kids became much more real to me. Entering fourth graders who struggled with kindergarten and first grade reading lists. Students who have no passion for reading. It will certainly be a challenge teaching a class this summer that has a range of scores from 10-60! I am excited and ready to execute my first lesson plan on Tuesday afternoon right after lunch (so I will have to be energetic!) My first lesson plan is about the inverse property of addition and subtraction. So once I taught myself what that means, I was able to think about how to teach it. My lack of math expertise is actually coming in handy as I try to put myself in the mindset of fifteen eight year-olds.

While I have spent a decent amount of time visiting southern states, I am noticing some new things here in the rural deep south. A guy who helped me move in was telling me how excited the town was to have its very first 24-hour Walmart, I went for a walk in "downtown" Cleveland at 5:30pm on Friday, and everything had already closed, and finally I'm realizing that some people do not grow weary of grits at nearly every meal. Observing the many, many, many small churches on our drive here, I also came to the conclusion that if you live here, you go to church, and if you go to church, you are a Baptist.

Today I am taking a big trip to Walmart and grabbing some dinner at a place that claims "the best fried shrimp" in the Delta (not that I will have much to compare it to!) Pretty pumped about that! Thanks for the support from each of you and I miss everyone dearly :o)

My Teaching Adventure Begins!

I am hoping to keep my family and friends in the loop about my newly started journey with Teach for America through this blog. So many of you were incredibly instrumental in getting me to where I am today and I am thrilled to share my journey with you!

Last Monday, I said goodbye to the city that I have called home for the past 25 years. (I, however, strongly believe that you can take the girl out of Pittsburgh, but you can't take Pittsburgh out of the girl!) Nolan drove me down to North Carolina where we got a chance to meet one of his new bosses at NC State and see the apartment we will be calling home in Tucker Hall at NC State University (I have been in NC long enough to realize if you want to sound correct, you call it simply "State" so I am trying to adapt!) After our campus visit, I said a bittersweet goodbye to Nolan when he dropped me off for my regional training in NC. After a few days there, I traveled with my new-found friend Marissa from Rocky Mount, NC to Cleveland, Mississippi...a crazy 15 hour drive through the deep south! I was reminded of my "yankee" status at a Subway restaurant in rural Alabama where the server could not understand my speech because of my accent!

After moving into my dorm room with my roommate for the next 5 weeks (quite the adjustment for this old married lady!), we hit the ground running with practical training and preparations for the summer school classes that we will be teaching. On Friday, I will welcome my class of Entering 4th graders for their summer school math block...Yes, I the non-math, English minded, book lover will be teaching math! I am totally out of my comfort zone, and actually totally excited!

I am adjusting to a different type of day where I get up at 4:45am...breakfast at 5:30am to make my 6:00am bus for my hour-long school bus ride to Bearden Elementary in the very, very, rural Mississippi Delta region. I can hardly wait to meet my students and to start this journey. I feel so strongly already that this is exactly what I am meant to be doing at this time in my life. Although, perhaps talk to me in a week, and I hope to feel the same. I am growing in my passion and dedication to the cause of providing a quality education for all students, and I am absolutely devastated by the vastness of the academic achievement gap in our country. I am now part of the movement to close that gap for the next generation of children, and it is refreshing to be surrounded by 800 young people with the same passion!

Well, for those of you stuck with me through this post, I hope you will enjoy hearing about my adventures! Stay tuned for more stories and reflections!