Greetings from the Mississippi Delta!!!!! Where the heat index's 103 at 10p, the water's brown, and the mosquitoes are huge. lol. A far cry from my once "glamourous" life in Malibu.
I don't know where to begin...so I'll start at day one. During the drive down (for New Teacher Training) to Leland...I got VERY depressed. It literally hit me all at once. What am I doing? Where am I going? What will I do in my spare time? Will I pick up this "accent"? Will Laura and I get along? Will my kids like me? What will the parents be like? Will the principal be supportive? What the f*** was I thinking? Will the water damage my hair and skin? Are the mosquitos really THAT bad? What if I'm not a good teacher? What if my kids fail the state test? How are the scores from last year? Will I be able to live off of 32K a year? Bills?!?! Will anyone come visit me? Will they WANT to come visit me in the Delta? What will my Cali friends think when/if they come to visit? Will my race be a huge issue down here? What will I do about church? Lord why? What? How? Why now? So many questions....so few answers.
Once I finally arrived and shared my fears with Laura, I felt a bit better. And fast forward about 3 weeks, I love my new Delta fam (Laura, Charles, Douglas, and me). We've all gotten to know one another very well and we get along GREAT! (fyi- Doug and Charlie live next door) I named our house the Teacher's Lounge (yea...I know you like it.) and it is definitely THE place to be for some great set ideas, music, grammer lessons, dramatizations, and much more. I'm sure there isn't another clan that beats ours... Special shout outs to ALL my new found TFA friends. Yea for alternate route teachers! lol.
Now...because I'm in a decent mood, I will speak BRIEFLY about my school.
We're failing our kids.
As a school. As a district. As a state. And as a nation.
We're letting them down miserably. The NNPSD (No Name Public School District-->alias) "superiors" are getting fat checks monthly while there are kids sitting in my 7th grade HONORS math class who didn't know about lining up decimal points or 3 x 3 = 9. I've never seen an organization so ill-functioning and UNORGANIZED IN MY LIFE!!!! Literally, every "horror" story I've heard from current and past MTC folk has all happened to Bill, Laura, or me in the last 16 days. I held for 6 days, and here we are at day 16 and schedules are STILL being changed. I've been cursed out and disrespected by 12 YEAR OLDS and when I wrote them up, they were sent back to the room. A TFA teacher got punched in the face by a fighting student...office did nothing. I had 18 desks...26 students. I feel like I'm on a little island with the other 20-somethings (mostly TFA) who actually give a damn about education and about the children. Other teachers actually make fun of the "new teachers" for 1. having rules, 2. enforcing the school's rules, 3. decorating our bulletin boards, 4. giving homework...and a host of other things EFFECTIVE teachers do. I feel sorry for the students that are actually there to get an education, because too many are there for "rank" (more on that later) or because momma and daddy are tired of fooling with them at home. I've never seen such a LARGE group of apathetic, DISRESPECTFUL KIDS in my life. And what does my unsupportive administration do to combat this problems...not a doggone thang! No sense of urgency whatsoever. As I always say, "That would be too much like right!"
On a positive note... 1. The Whole Brain Teaching method has been working REALLY well in my classrooms (for the most part). I have a video from my very FIRST day of school of the kids responding to the "class-yes" and reciting the rules with gestures. (Still working on loading that vid on the net!) Pure joy! :) 2. The kids keep me laughing...really. Kids say the darnest things! ;) 3. The parents have been quite supportive and receptive to the weekly reports, whether positive or negative.
BAKING BEAUTY
I took the teachers, office staff, and custodial staff brownies on the first day of school and BOYYYYYY were those a HIT! My colleagues are STILL talking about those brownies, and I've even had a few orders because of it. :) I didn't get a picture because the secretaries have major a-t-t-i-t-u-d-e, but here is a pic of one of the pan of brownies! YUM!
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