Talking Resumes and Geese

Day 3 of Induction is done, and it simultaneously feels like we're just getting started and like we've been here forever. The days are long and structured and generally more useful than I initially assume they'll be, but it's hard to stay focused on what's going on with the specter of Institute looming over every workshop and lecture. Thus far, we haven't been given a lot of details on how it's going to go down; what we have gotten is a lot of "You'll see when you get there!"s along with raised eyebrows and knowing smiles. So we continue to break ice and share our feelings and keep our eyes locked on Sunday.

Despite all the icebreaking and introductions, it's hard to get to know people here-- I mean really get to know them. Every morning we file into the dining hall for breakfast in our business clothes, looking so much like walking, talking resumes. So professional, so accomplished. Even the group outings have the same toy-just-taken-out-of-the-box feel to them, despite the change of dress. We talk about where we went to school, old jobs, what we did there, what brought us to apply for and commit to TFA, how weird the interviews were, and what we do (and very occasionally someone is willing to venture what they don't) like about the program. The workshops have been asking us to talk about racial, cultural and class identity, so we'll talk about that when prompted, in the very safe and guarded way that you talk about those things in that sort of setting. 

So I was really surprised at lunch today when I sat down with a few corps members, including one girl I hadn't even met yet, and the conversation quickly got real. It started with one of us sharing some pretty heavy family stress, and I was amazed when the entire table jumped in right away with support, advice and tales of their own similar personal struggles: how everyone seated there had faced substance abuse, eating disorders, self-mutilation or suicide, a host of other heartaches in themselves and/or those they cared for, and had lived to tell about it. Thrived, even. No talking resumes here. Just real people who had been through the darkness only to come out on the other side of it and decide that what they really wanted to do for at least two years of their lives is bring some light to children who desperately need it. I was floored; that whole "humility" thing TFA has been asking us to think about this week? I thought I got it, but I appreciate it even more now.

These aren't the kind of things that TFA (or any employer, obviously) is going to ask you about during your interview, but that conversation gave me so much more faith in my fellow teachers-to-be than any student leadership position on a resume ever could, and in seeing myself in our shared stories, I found a bit more faith in myself, too. Because that darkness comes for all of us at some point in our lives, and goodness knows it will come for some of our students (let's get real, it may already have done so). And they'll need structure, and engaging lessons, and lots and lots of hard work to help them grow the skills that will help them combat that darkness, but they'll also need to count on someone who's been through it before. I will probably not ever be able to completely understand what some of my future students will have to face in their lives--what form the darkness will take for them-- but I think that on some primal level we can sense that all of us as humans have that common enemy, and that we can help each other fight it.

Or, you know, maybe I'm still working Stephen King out of my system. 

Anywho, here is a picture of some geese chillin hard in the park where we picnicked today:

I think it was too hot to fly so they decided to stand around and poop instead. Good plan.

Making It Real

I have planned for awhile now to start this blog. Teaching will be an adventure, and I want to document it. I want the folks back home to know what I'm up to on the other side of the continent without constant emails. Blogging is a good intellectual practice-- and after all, what is my fancy new B.A. good for if not giving me the authority to say things on the Intertubes? There are plenty of good reasons to blog, but now that I'm here blogging I kind of wish that I weren't, because that means that in a few days (count 'em three) I'll be leaving California for a very long time to go be a teacher. It's a real thing now. And I'd be lying if I said that wasn't a very very scary thing.


I have spent lots of time this week being nervous and excited, but I think most of all I've been spending time feeling a little mournful, saying goodbye to the East Bay "Goodnight Moon" style ("Goodnight People's Park" "Goodnight Bay" "Goodnight Casa Latina and the Happiness Bomb That Is Your Barbacoa Torta"). I've been sitting in the apartment that I've lived in for two years and feeling like a baby bird who desperately wants to snuggle back into their nest once they've seen how far the drop is. It's a messy, colorful hodgepodge of cheap Ikea, friends' hand-me-downs, thrift store/Urban Ore finds and a few family heirlooms, and it's very much home. I watched a lot of TV and read even more books here. Mike and I adopted our first pets together here (RIP Homer Swimpson). After we got married, this is the place we came home to. A whole lotta growing up happened here, and I'm prone to getting a little misty about it, okay? But also stoked. Totally, totally stoked.


My fear for this blog is that it will peter out in that. That seems to happen a lot with other TFA bloggers. You'll see a post about "YAAAAAY Institute!" and then "OMG First Day of Class!" and then a few weeks later "teaching is hard..." followed by radio silence. I imagine that happens because teaching is, in fact, hard. But I'm still optimistic that I'll be able to eke out some time for this. I've always admired those who blog but never had anything to write about (narcissistic high school Livejournaling aside), and I hope this will be a place where I can reflect a bit about what I've gotten myself into. And show off nifty Charlotte things. And maybe whine a little bit about how much I miss my California friends and California weather.


I'll also be blogging at Teach For Us, the site I linked to in the above paragraph (see?). It'll pretty much be reprints of what I write here, but I plan to keep that one strictly teaching, while this one will probably also include lots of pictures of my cat. But it seemed important to have a semi-official TFA blog presence as well, since I'm a team player and all that.


The name for this blog, by the way, is from The Wire, which I finished watching a few weeks ago and kind of changed my life. It comes from the vice-principal's advice to newly-minted math teacher Mr. Pryzbylewski, that he look upon his students with "soft eyes." I'm adopting the phrase here so it can serve as a sort of constant admonition that I do the same, and for me it's also about acknowledging the double-edged sword of my own "softness": the unique perspective that I know I can bring to my classroom and the larger fight for educational equity, coupled with the fact that I am utterly inexperienced and starting from square one like the dudes at the beginning of Mulan.


So tomorrow I'm going to go buy a suit for my placement interviews, go to my last day of work at YMP (and step foot on the Cal campus for what will probably be the last time until I'm a corny old alum at a homecoming game or something), and hang out with my friends who haven't left the area yet. Then on Saturday I'm going to spend the day with my parents and wish my mom a happy birthday (yay mom!). And on Sunday, after my husband makes me a steak, I'm getting on a plane and starting a new proverbial chapter of my life in North Carolina. It's really happening.


Time to get writing.