Now for a few words on my job:

My job is undoubtedly the biggest part of my life after Scripps, but I’ve found it nearly impossible to write about it until now. Why? Because I never know where to begin. And that’s not for a lack of trying. I have started this post over and over again, and I’ve had this conversation with many a coworker and TFA Corps member. When people ask me to tell them about my job, I can’t help but look them dead in the eye and think, “If only you knew what you just asked me to do.”

Being a teacher is—ahhh—I don’t even know how to explain it. It’s wonderful, it’s terrifying, it’s challenging, intimidating, unpredictable, fulfilling, frustrating, it makes me laugh and it makes me cry. It is the most important job I can ever imagine having. Every week at work I get to interact with my 126 amazing students. Every week at work I am responsible for taking a part in educating 126 young, absorbent, skeptical, trusting, forming minds who sometimes look at me as if I know all of the answers to all of the world’s questions. And it breaks my heart to know that I don’t. I don’t know everything, and as much as I would love to give them the magical answers to help them fix the frustrations of their lives, I’m not able to. I probably learn more than I teach everyday. Sometimes that learning comes in the form of research that I do to prepare for an upcoming lesson, sometimes that learning comes from having a conversation with a high school counselor about a student’s situation at home, sometimes that learning comes from my grad school homework, but most often that learning comes from my students, more often called my kids.

I adore my kids, and I’d also hope to think that most of them like me well enough. They range in age from 14 to 18. I teach 9th graders, 11th graders and 12th graders. The difference between the freshmen and the seniors is sometimes staggering—enough to make me wish I had studied childhood and adolescent psychology as an undergraduate. One thing that many of them have in common though is that many of them have really difficult life situations, and that’s the most difficult part of my job: trying to figure out how to help a 14-year-old who reads at a 4th grade level improve his literacy, or trying to interact with and teach a student who has a really difficult time maintaining focus because he or she can’t stop thinking about problems at home, or trying to motivate a kid to believe in himself because he thinks that no one else does. I could tell you stories about my kids, and I’m sure many teachers and my fellow TFA corps members could attest to this, that would simply break your heart. But I don’t think this is the proper forum to share with you the many trials and tribulations of my job as it relates to the realities my kids are faced with each day. That’s not what this job is about. This job is not about helping victims of a failed public education system. This job is about doing everything I possibly can while I am responsible for teaching these kids that will empower them with the tools they need to be successful in life.

Continue reading

Professional Dress

When I was in the third grade, I decided that I couldn’t be a doctor because no one would ever be able to see my clothes underneath those boring, white coats. If I was a teacher, on the other hand, I would get to wear whatever I wanted to wear everyday. This logic, ridiculous as it was, offers some insight into my values at the tender young age of nine. I had my priorities. First, be smarter than the boys in my class. Second, look great doing it.

Fast forward some fifteen or so years later, and lo and behold I am a teacher! But, I was not thinking of clothes when I applied for Teach for America. I was thinking of educational inequity and closing the achievement gap.

Clothes did become an issue, though, when it came time for my TFA interview. After three and a half glorious years frolicking around in the Claremont sun, I had amassed quite the arsenal of sundresses, gladiator sandals, American Apparel v-necks and oversized sunglasses, but I was not well versed in the category of professional attire.

The day my mom and I went shopping for a suit for my interview was almost as painful an experience as the wild goose chases we undertook while looking for homecoming and prom dresses in high school. There were many moments of frustration and strife, and we looked through many a sale rack before giving in and going to Banana Republic, where we found a very modest black suit that fit well (and of course wasn’t discounted). The next weekend I picked up some power pumps at Nordstrom Rack and I was set.

Little did I know that the suit and those power pumps were the beginnings of a takeover.

My beloved closet has undergone a complete transformation over the past six months. At Scripps, my hangers were laden with colorful dresses, funky sweaters, jeans and jersey. Today, those hangers hold blouses, dress pants, dresses (sleeved with knee-length hemlines), A-line skirts and sweaters. The most prominent color? Black.

In college, my blacks were reserved for working backstage crew assignments at the theatre. Now my blacks are ironed, pleated, cuffed and respectable looking, while also ready to camouflage the black whiteboard marker dust that finds its way onto any garment that is vibrantly colored. (My bright yellow skirt gets dingy every time.) Jeans are now reserved for weekends. My shoes are sometimes orthopedic and always closed toe; and, my Reef flip flops are for trips to the mailbox and Target.

At first, I hated it. I hated these frumpy teacher clothes. I felt like my creativity was being stifled. Not only did I have to wear a bra everyday (Oh, Scripps…), but I had to wear closed toe shoes and trade my Scripps College sweatpants for dress pants. Luckily, I got the hang of dressing like a teacher rather quickly.

Having experienced an interdisciplinary education helped with the transition to dressing like a “grown up.” I soon learned to mix a colorful blouse from my college days of yore with dark dress pants purchased for work, match bright shoes and a funky scarf with a conservative dress, and jazz up an oxford button down with those awesome earrings I bought from the vendor who sells jewelry outside of the entrance to Viva Madrid!

Mixing old and new pieces has allowed me not only to maximize my closet’s potential (cotton sundresses can be successfully worn under sweaters and blazers alike), but also retain a sense of individuality in my daily wardrobe choices. And on Thursday mornings, when my alarm goes off at 5:00 a.m. to remind me that I have an hour of traffic waiting for me, sometimes a fun outfit can be great motivation to pop out of bed and greet the 10 west with both a battle cry and a sashay.  (My nine year-old self would be proud.)

Moral of the story: be your workplace a cubicle, lab or classroom, you can always infuse an element of style into your work wardrobe that is unabashedly “you.” It makes the dress pants all the more bearable.

Scripps Oxygen Tanks

Friday afternoons, after my last class leaves, I have adopted the ritual of cleaning my whiteboard. It’s relaxing, somehow. Like doing laundry or washing the dishes. Maybe the feeling is somehow akin to an exhalation, something mindless that also serve as a release. The day is done, the dinner party is over. Now I tidy up and prepare for some rest. Unfortunately, a first year teacher’s weekends are not nearly as relaxing as one might hope they’d be. Or, at least mine aren’t. I take Friday nights off. Mostly because I’m too pooped to do anything remotely productive. Sometimes I’ll stay at work late to tie up loose ends and wait for Friday afternoon traffic to die down. Sometimes I go to happy hour with my (wonderful) coworkers—many members of my group of friends are also first year teachers, so we often vow not to talk about work, but then end up talking about teaching for a couple of ours anyway. Teaching is seriously pretty much all I think about. What am I doing well? What am I sucking at? How can I be better? I credit my time at Scripps for instilling within me this ability to be self critical and reflective. I, of course, also learned to see my own strengths and to push myself to reach beyond them.

Scripps also gave me something else. Something I’ve come to refer to as oxygen tanks.

During Teach for America’s summer training institute, I was sitting in a seminar on wellness and life balance when a fellow 2009 corps member started talking about this “oxygen tank” concept. The analogy she presented went something like this: Sometimes life feels like a whirlpool. One minute you’re swimming along with a pod of friendly dolphins and then out of nowhere you find yourself swimming through dense water, unsure of which direction to turn and under what feels like 10,000 leagues worth of water pressure. This is when you turn to your oxygen tanks for reassurance and sometimes a little bit of help, to get you through the murky patches of unpredictable rip tides and soggy strips of sea weed. These so-called oxygen tanks are also known as your go-to friends. Those people with whom you have eye-opening conversations, those people who help you talk out your ideas, or who are just really amazing at facilitating ranting sessions.

Continue reading

From writing a thesis, to writing a syllabus (or three)

I am sitting on my bedroom floor writing while listening to Kate Nash. This is standard operating procedure as far as my work habits go. But I am no longer in Dorsey 231 with my French doors open to let in a cool breeze. And I am no longer feverishly typing away at my latest thesis draft on my trusty Mac. No, no, no. Those times have since passed.

Now, I am sitting on the floor of my childhood bedroom, where I will be staying until paycheck numero uno provides me with much needed dinero to move into LA. (You can only live on graduation money for so long. In my case, it lasted for about a month of shopping for “teacher clothes” at Nordstrom Rack and paying for numerous sets of fingerprints and teacher credentialing program fees.)

I am no longer surrounded by volumes of Poe, Butler, Kristeva, Freud or Artaud’s brilliant ramblings. No. I am now surrounded by The Language of Composition, Prentice Hall Literature, The Princeton Review California High School Exit Exam prep book, and copies of an Orwell essay, Samantha Power’s book on genocide, A Room of One’s Own and upwards of nine syllabi from fellow teachers, the college board website, and (the goddess) Professor Kimberly Drake.

I, my friends, am lesson planning.

On Monday, I will begin teaching high school English as part of the Teach for America Los Angeles 2009 corps. Despite the amount of work that needs to get done between now and 7:45 a.m. on Monday morning to prepare for my three different English preps (9th grade, 11 AP and 12th grade), I am PUMPED!

Continue reading