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!