TeachForAmerica - Institute Day 1

I relocated to Houston driving over 2000, passing through 11 states, and burning 6 quarts of transmission fluid and 2 quarts of oil. I wasn't really all that nervous about things, even when I spent 16 hours in South Carolina working on my Pre-Institute reading material and still wasn't done. It was only when I was driving into downtown Houston, on Wednesday, June 7th for my Houston Induction, that the nervousness overwhelmed me, nearly causing a U-turn.

Luckily, I did not turn the car around. Luckily, I continued to the Houston Crowne Plaza Hotel, where I spent 3 days and 4 nights getting acclimated to Houston, the mission of TfA, the Houston Corps and the expectations I have to look forward to at Institute. And after making friends, meeting tons of people, sitting in on numerous informational sessions and eating lots of food, I moved over to the University of Houston campus for Institute on Sunday, June 11th.

Today I woke up at 5:20 am. School starts promptly at 7:00 every morning, and depending on where your summer school is located, you could have between 5 and 45 minutes of commute. I am located at Thompson Elementary, the closest summer school location. My bus leaves at 6:53 am every morning. If I arrive at 6:53 and 30 seconds it will have already left. The five minute ride takes us into the middle of a old residential district, where Thompson Elementary has been located since its founding in 1949. Thompson has had a long track record hosting TfA corps members (over a decade), and so the transition for this summer is pretty seamless. My fellow corps members and I are welcomed by Michael C. (I forgot his last name) who is our Site Director, and challenged to focus on the immense challenge before us: We must learn to become excellent teachers of students, but we must also help the summer school students achieve significant academic achievements *this* summer.

Today mainly consisted of 'get to know you' type material, and a review of the first two behaviors of our Teaching as Leadership text; Setting Big Goals and Investing Students and their Influencers. All corps members have already read these texts, and have completed reflective exercises to help connect the central ideas of Teaching as Leadership to our own experiences, but TfA is reviewing it none the less. And we review all day. We finish up at 4:00 pm.

So far this experience, learning to be a teacher, has been a challenge of mental outlook. In many of the required readings, and in some of the motivational talks that I have been exposed to, I found myself resenting the emotional strings that the writing was playing. The stories were real, I am confident, but at the same time it felt as if they were trying to get an emotional response from me, and I resented it. I had to remind myself time and time again that I *believe* in the mission of Teach for America, and that the educational injustices in this country are *reason* for becoming impassioned.

And then I am okay. Because I do believe in the mission for Teach for America. The more I hear about the racial and monetary injustices perpetuated by the educational system, the more I want to go FIX it. So that's good.