Mr. Glasser, huh?

First off, apologies for the delay in updating things. I'm sure you were all concerned for my safety. I appreciate your concern. You'll be glad to hear that I am alive.

Today was what you might call Day 1. That title seems appropriate since it was, in fact, the first day that I was teaching in front of students. It's important to note that this is the first day with actual students, as opposed to the two weeks I've spent teaching seventh grade reading to college graduates. I know practice is supposed to make perfect, but seriously, the most creative minds could only do so much to transform a group of 23 year-olds in suits into seventh grade summer school students. And for most of my TFA colleagues, their imaginations could only go so far in making them into seventh graders. Even when the TFA-ers were piling it on, I had to coax them into throwing a spitball my way. The same was not true for the students in my classroom.

To prepare us for entering the fray of summer school, the TFA training corps (must things in TFA are divided into Corps. Given the other Corps I know--Marine, end list--this seems like an overstep) gave us a series of lessons on classroom management and student investment. For those of you not yet indoctrinated in the Teach For America vernacular, classroom management refers to the series of non-corporal measures taken by a teacher to maintain law and order in the classroom. It's apparently important to specify corporal versus non-corporal because its still legal to beat kids in school in both Georgia and Louisiana. Yep. Why old-style Catholic schools haven't made a surge down here is beyond me. Seems like their cup of tea.

Anyway, classroom management stands in contrast to student investment, which refers to the series of positive reinforcement techniques employed by teachers to encourage students to take more agency in their education. At first, much of the suggested techniques for both management and investment seemed fairly juvenile to me, and I tried like hell to avoid exposing these seventh graders to kindergarten tactics.

I, along with some others in my cohort, expressed this theme of concern to our group advisor (who, incidentally, won the national award for teaching excellence from TFA last year. Casual. And studied at Oxford. Or Cambridge? Either way, she's a year older than me...). In order to highlight the importance of tight classroom management techniques, she recounted a story of bad classroom management which I am obliged to share with anyone and everyone. So tell your friends.

It went like this:

[Student texting]
Teacher: Now, you know we can't have cell phones in school. Put it away now or I'll take it.
[Crickets. Student presumably is exceeding her 160 character maximum.]
Teacher: Ok, I warned you. Give me your phone. You can have it at the end of the day.
[Student does not glance up, let alone hand over the contraband]
Teacher: (Student's name omitted), give me that phone or I'll have to send you to the Principal's office
[Students replies with incomprehensible syllables]
Teacher (in raised voice, approaching student): Ok get out. I'll let the office know you're coming.
Student (as if returning to consciousness all of a sudden): Man, you can't take my phone!
Situation escalates
Student: Man, fuck you, man.
Teacher: Fuck me? Fuck you!
Student: You can't talk to me like that. I'm calling my mom (presumably on the contraband cell phone).
Teacher: CALL DA BITCH!

This is, I've learned, a poor example of how to manage the classroom. For those of you taking notes, never call da bitch. Always don't call da bitch. Got it? Good.

In addition to management, we've talked extensively about lesson planning. I wish I could tell you what I've learned, but the feedback I've gotten on my submitted plans so far has put me in the Novice to Pre-Novice grouping. So I don't feel too comfortable propagating that wisdom yet.

One things that's become increasingly apparent is the number of gulfs between myself (and TFA at large) and the population we're serving. Some aren't too surprising: We, by and large, come from stable, supporting households. They do not. We, by and large, we're raised with college as a eventual educational terminus. These kids were not. We are nerds, almost exclusively. The kids we're teaching are not. Many of us are white, and therefore cannot speak firsthand to how racism feels or manifests itself. These kids can.

Other divides were less obvious: We were motivated by good grades and exciting teachers. Many of these kids are still waiting for an exciting teacher. We had to have our egos reeled in. You could tell these kids how brilliant they are for months, and they'd still laugh at you. Geographically and socioeconomically, TFA members are largely Northeastern, with all the connotations that brings along. These kids are black and from southern cities.

And maybe its not the nature of the divides, but more how obvious they are in watching some new teachers interact with students. For example, I heard some co-teachers debriefing about a "Getting to Know You" survey, during which several kids were confused by a question which asked who they would have lunch with if they could choose any historical figure. A fellow TFA member, in an effort to clear up questions, suggested several figures: "What about Malcolm X or Martin Luther King?" Now don't get me wrong, clearly those are two incredibly monumental figures in American history, and would make for great lunch dates. But when you individually suggest only those to options to each of the 14 students in the room, that becomes a red flag.

Another example: Having come from Georgetown, a place which is bad at diversity and where powerful student voices worked to begin diversity dialogues, I've had the opportunity to be a part of several diversity conversations. These are often uncomfortable, particularly when 11 white kids are staring one person of color in the face. TFA, however, facilitated a really impressive conversation about diversity, which began on a high note when one white, Corps members who was placed in Memphis opened up about his initial hesitations in accepting a placement in Memphis. What began as a soliliquoy about embracing his own ignorance and dismissing his embedded prejudices took a hard turn right and ended soundly in a ditch. One excerpt, which may be paraphrased, but I'm pretty sure is verbatim: "I just have never had a meaningful relationship with a black person. (Later, in a smaller group):I've played basketball with black people. But aside from that, I thought I could only talk to black people about kool-aid, watermelon and fried chicken."

Tactful right. Let's go party like its 1959..wait a second.

But as much as I want to totally divorce myself from statements and people like that, I'm acutely aware that we all, regardless of race, have some learning to do. More importantly, we're all acutely aware that as long as time is of the essence, as it is now, we don't have time to allow mindsets to subvert what we're after here. It's not secret that the achievement gap exists along racial and economic lines. Kids who need the most help are going to be poor minorities, especially poor minority males. And I'll never know even what it's kind of like to live in that skin. But I have learned that half the battle is realizing what you don't know.

I'm just going to go ahead and warn you henceforth: the more you learn about educational disparity in the U.S. the more it sucks. I'm no expert by any stretch. But a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, apparently, because I find it hard to resist indignance. Hence the paragraphs-long diatribes with no levity whatsoever. My bad!

Anyway, so my classroom. First off, I know good things would come since the room number is 412. And I was mostly right. I'm lucky enough to have kids who, by and large, want to be there. Or, at least show up most days, which is a huge plus compared to most classrooms. These kids, also, are by and large reading between 4th and 6th levels, so only 2-3 years behind where they ought to be. Which sounds terrible, until you hear about the 7th grader who's reading at a first grade level. Which is what we teachers call "perspective".

I walked in this morning a little nervous, which I cannot deny, but I had a couple things going for me. First, I chose this awesome sauce book that I read in seventh grade to use for my lesson. And the kids ate it up. Just like I did in seventh grade. Getting to revisit the Outsiders and Monster and Captain Underpants [deep sigh] glory days.

Anyway, probably the most noteworthy that occurred whilst I pedagoged (yep, I'm a reading teacher) was that nothing happened. Kids followed along. And answered questions. And it was awesome. One thing I forgot: Lunch is a huge deal when you're in school for hours upon hours. These guys were like Pavlov's dogs as soon as they heard a brown paper bag krinkle.

As a reward for listening to my co-teacher and I talk for hours and hours (seemingly), we played a game called hot seat, during which students got 3 minutes to ask each of us anything they wanted. I was concerned when the game started off slow.

This concern was erroneous.

One bold little feller started asking if I went on dates. If so, where? If there, with whom? (I actually wasn't too mad at that one since the student used the objective preposition. Big win.) If I'm dating why don't I have kids? Do I want to have kids? How long was I going to wait to have kids? Did I shower? Do I wear normal clothes on weekends? How old was I (they would have bet millions on >30 given the millions to bet)?

Questions went on in this vein for a while until the buzzer finally rang. But even after this period of full disclosure from me, you wouldn't believe how many kids refused to give us real phone numbers for their parents.

I also learned that getting along well with kids is not always a good thing. I'm really inclined to be all buddy with them, talk about their hopes and dreams, build them up, buy them things, hear about their lives, etc. But sometimes, especially inthese early days, they will take that slack and run with. Literally. One kid ran up to give me a high five, as I instructed, then pulled a spin move, ducked under my arm, and ran down the hall. But I felt pretty legit when I wrote him up. Who's laughing now, you crazy fast super human?

So, thus began the career and the series of adorable and infuriating anecdotes that will characterize my next two years. In sum, I don't have it yet. not by a long shot. But I'm feeling like it's attainable now, which is certainly progress. And I'm really rocking the teacher bag with some swagger. Probably the most important progress to date.

In TFA, they talk about setting big goals that challenge students without frustrating them. Talk about big goals: taking the 700 english and polisci majors here assembled and making us good at (at least faking) teaching. But somehow, they're doing it.

Finally, I have to say that I knock TFA for the Kool-Aid drinking a lot. And it is excessive at times. But when we got back to Georgia Tech, there were signs posted all over campus congratulating us "teachers", I couldn't help but get goosebumps. I just hope some kids get as much out of this experience as I am.

That does it for now. More to come tomorrow (now that's kids involved, and we all know they say the darndest things, I'm expecting plenty of fodder).