Up To This Point

About 2 months ago, I got a call to tell me that I had been accepted into Teach For America's 2009 Houston Corps. The only thing that meant to me was that I had made it into Teach For America (out of the 40K people that had applied) and that I would be moving to Houston if I accepted. After about three days of thinking, I decided to accept. Ever since then, it has been a whirlwind of emotions, activities, deadlines, etc.

I packed up my clothes and made the 10 hour trek (which took 12 hours, since I got stuck on a bridge in Louisiana) to Texas in the beginning of June. I faced a 5 week training that I knew very little about. All I knew was that I'd be teaching a summer school class. I didn't know the grade, subject or school. I didn't know anyone that I'd be working with or living around. It was very intimidating and quite nerve-wracking. I was incredibly lucky to get the best roommate possible in our dorm living and worked with some of the coolest and funniest people I've ever met.

My summer school assignment was 6th grade Science. If there are two things you should know about me it is that I have/had no desire to teach middle school, and I'm not the best at science. Facing a class of 6th graders (many of which struggled with English) and knowing that I was their hope of passing was very worrisome. I had to relearn 6th grade science and become comfortable enough with it to teach it to students that didn't understand the basic concepts. I quickly began to doubt myself as a teacher and wasn't sure what I was doing here. The thought that I had been admitted into TFA by accident was definitely one that found its way into my head on a regular basis..

My students and I struggled through the content together and actually ended up making great progress. In fact, I had one student that made 160% growth. I knew that after a school year, you get extremely attached to your students (because I've had that experience). And it is very difficult to let your students go after a full school year. However...I did not realize that after only 4 weeks spent with students (and only 70 minutes a day), I would be just as attached to my students and invested in their progress as I was for my students that I had for 1 year (some for 2). The last day of school, I got to pass out my students "report cards" that told them if they were going into 7th grade or not. All of my students passed, which was a great feeling in itself. But watching their faces as they saw that they get to go to 7th grade was PRICELESS. One of my students that had really struggled in all subjects (and had asked if he passed every 5 minutes for 2 days in a row) got his report card and got tears in his eyes when I showed him that he was going on to 7th grade. The look in his eyes was so touching...it made me tear up too.

All of the corps members have joined this movement for their own reason. However, I think that all of us are the same in thinking that we want to help change the world...starting with the kids that need us the most and the kids that will be our world's future. We are, as they said at induction, change agents. Let's get the change going....