Prince George's County made the front page of the Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/27/AR2009082701518_2.html?sid=ST2009082601838
This is one of the many challenges to a large urban school system that make it difficult for teachers to do their job.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Saturday, August 22, 2009
From Teaching Bootcamp, to Classroom Teacher: A Metamorphesis.
If you asked me several years ago about the probability of me teaching in public school, I would have said 0%. Now in two days, I will embark on teaching a group of talented future citizens of the United States. What happened you might ask...
I must start by saying that as I have matured over the past 3 years, I've been able to understand and respect the value of my education in a very new light. The value of having a rigorous education cannot be undervalued in our world. The age we live in requires more and more citizens that have sharp critical thinking skills, high literacy rates, and mathematical skills. Without these basic skills, our next generation will be in a world of trouble.
I became even more committed to education when I attended a Teach for America recruiting event at Gettysburg College last December. I became enraged at the outlook for educational inequality in our country. In the richest country in the world, we live in a nation that defines educational opportunity and the prospects of a future, based upon the zip code you that you reside. The bureaucracy is slanted in a way that ill-equipped schools continue to receive less resources because of the funding structure, while their suburban counterparts often have less of an issue since the tax structure is skewed toward equipping these districts with additional resources.* Furthermore, this disproportionately affects minorities, African Americans and Hispanics, and low-income communities. This is the achievement gap. My friends, this achievement gap is the future of our country and world. We're not even equipping them with the most basic of tools to flourish.
Jessica Gasper, the TFA recruiter, laid all of this on my heart and, in many regards, she convinced me that I could assist in alleviating the achievement gap. Fast-forward to January: I was accepted into the Washington, D.C. corps as a biology teacher and had to make the decision about the next 2 years of my life. I guess it's pretty obvious the direction I chose.
My training started in June. It was several weeks of intensive teacher training that attempted to teach myself, and a group of about 800 corps members from the DC, Philadelphia, and Baltimore regions, to become effective teachers. Keep in mind that many of us never had any formal training to become teachers; we were chosen based on our academic history, leadership record, and critical thinking skills, which they say were the most important assets to become effective teachers who make significant gains in partnership with their students.
I taught physical science with a team of 3 marvelously talented, committed individuals, and under the auspices of a veteran teacher from Central High School in the Philadelphia City Schools system. Our summer "home" was at South Philadelphia High School.
My month of July was un-officially teacher boot camp. I woke up at 5:15AM in my dorm at Temple University and departed for breakfast. I was on the bus by 6:45AM--or it would leave without me. About half an hour later, I arrived at my school site and taught Physical Science to a group of students from 8-10AM, followed by classes the rest of the day. At 4PM, I headed back to Temple University to lesson plan, practice teaching, group work, parent calls, and other duties as assigned. I usually went to bed around 11PM.
After all of this, I have come to appreciate the amazing dedicated work professional teachers do year after year, day after day.
To cut to the chase shortly, less than 2 months after I began this quest toward educating students, I'm completing lesson plans for the first 2 weeks of my new job. I've already unit planned, set large goals, and set my expectations high for my students without ever meeting them. I guess Monday will be the exciting day: Day 1. I'll be a biology teacher in Prince George's County Public Schools neck-deep in the battle against the achievement gap.
To my future students at Forestville - I believe that you can achieve your dreams. I am the instructional leader of the classroom. I will do my part to lead you there by learning biology, critical thinking, literacy, and appreciation for learning. I hope you will enjoy me on this journey. You will learn to love me as a compassionate person, hate me as a rigorous teacher, and, hopefully in the end, appreciate me for the small impact I hope to make on your life.
* Read Jonathan Kozol's Shame of the Nation for more details. Or you could just surf on over to www.teachforamerica.org.
I must start by saying that as I have matured over the past 3 years, I've been able to understand and respect the value of my education in a very new light. The value of having a rigorous education cannot be undervalued in our world. The age we live in requires more and more citizens that have sharp critical thinking skills, high literacy rates, and mathematical skills. Without these basic skills, our next generation will be in a world of trouble.
I became even more committed to education when I attended a Teach for America recruiting event at Gettysburg College last December. I became enraged at the outlook for educational inequality in our country. In the richest country in the world, we live in a nation that defines educational opportunity and the prospects of a future, based upon the zip code you that you reside. The bureaucracy is slanted in a way that ill-equipped schools continue to receive less resources because of the funding structure, while their suburban counterparts often have less of an issue since the tax structure is skewed toward equipping these districts with additional resources.* Furthermore, this disproportionately affects minorities, African Americans and Hispanics, and low-income communities. This is the achievement gap. My friends, this achievement gap is the future of our country and world. We're not even equipping them with the most basic of tools to flourish.
Jessica Gasper, the TFA recruiter, laid all of this on my heart and, in many regards, she convinced me that I could assist in alleviating the achievement gap. Fast-forward to January: I was accepted into the Washington, D.C. corps as a biology teacher and had to make the decision about the next 2 years of my life. I guess it's pretty obvious the direction I chose.
My training started in June. It was several weeks of intensive teacher training that attempted to teach myself, and a group of about 800 corps members from the DC, Philadelphia, and Baltimore regions, to become effective teachers. Keep in mind that many of us never had any formal training to become teachers; we were chosen based on our academic history, leadership record, and critical thinking skills, which they say were the most important assets to become effective teachers who make significant gains in partnership with their students.
I taught physical science with a team of 3 marvelously talented, committed individuals, and under the auspices of a veteran teacher from Central High School in the Philadelphia City Schools system. Our summer "home" was at South Philadelphia High School.
My month of July was un-officially teacher boot camp. I woke up at 5:15AM in my dorm at Temple University and departed for breakfast. I was on the bus by 6:45AM--or it would leave without me. About half an hour later, I arrived at my school site and taught Physical Science to a group of students from 8-10AM, followed by classes the rest of the day. At 4PM, I headed back to Temple University to lesson plan, practice teaching, group work, parent calls, and other duties as assigned. I usually went to bed around 11PM.
After all of this, I have come to appreciate the amazing dedicated work professional teachers do year after year, day after day.
To cut to the chase shortly, less than 2 months after I began this quest toward educating students, I'm completing lesson plans for the first 2 weeks of my new job. I've already unit planned, set large goals, and set my expectations high for my students without ever meeting them. I guess Monday will be the exciting day: Day 1. I'll be a biology teacher in Prince George's County Public Schools neck-deep in the battle against the achievement gap.
To my future students at Forestville - I believe that you can achieve your dreams. I am the instructional leader of the classroom. I will do my part to lead you there by learning biology, critical thinking, literacy, and appreciation for learning. I hope you will enjoy me on this journey. You will learn to love me as a compassionate person, hate me as a rigorous teacher, and, hopefully in the end, appreciate me for the small impact I hope to make on your life.
* Read Jonathan Kozol's Shame of the Nation for more details. Or you could just surf on over to www.teachforamerica.org.
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