End of the Beginning

Today was the end of Institute, a place where I grew as a student, teacher & leader. A place where I met so many wonderful people & teachers. A place where my heart will forever reside, because this is where I truly learned what Teach For America was really all about - and became part of the cause.

Today was the end of the beginning.

THURSDAY:

My empty classroom. Bye, summer school.

My collab. Thank you Paco, Rosa & Melissa for being such wonderful friends & teachers!

 After the last day of school on Thursday, my roommate Cindy & I celebrated at the pub on-campus. Cheers!

Representing DFW with our duck hats.

Teach For America then had closing ceremonies, filled with inspirational speeches, from 7:30 - 9 p.m. It was the last time all of the Houston, San Antonio, DFW, Rio Grande Valley & Eastern North Carolina 2012 Corps Members were united in the same room.

Program for the night.

 The ceremony also had some really cool acts - specifically a drumline from YES Prep North Central & a shuffling act by Kreativity has Spoken. Check out these videos:

FRIDAY:

My CMA, Leland, had an emergency stash of chocolate pandas for our cohort. The rule was that if you were about to have/were having a mental breakdown, you could open the box & eat a few pandas. Luckily, the box was left sealed until the final day. We celebrated by eating the pandas together :)

Holy pandas.

Cheers to no breakdowns!

My cohort. My family. Y'all are amazing.

Summer Jam

Institute ends THIS Friday. YES.

My excitement to finally have a "summer" is mixed with some sadness - I will have to say goodbye to my students, to my friends from other regions (Houston, Rio Grande Valley, San Antonio, Eastern North Carolina), & the faculty when I depart from Houston.

These past few weeks have been absolutely exhausting. I am at week 5, & feel completely drained; I can't remember the last time I've been this tired! As a result, I've chosen sleeping over blogging :P

Last week ended on a high note - my collab group got to take 3 of our students to Rice University to show them what college was all about (the program was called Summer Jam). I have so many wonderful pictures of my students, but since they are minors I am not allowed to post them online :/ so here is what I have instead!

Mr. Goins (middle) and Mr. Lara with a student.

Horned Frogs!

Some more horned frog hands

 

Before the afternoon Summer Jam celebration started, students & staff started dancing to "The Wobble."

An awful picture of our guest speaker, Vince Young, at Summer Jam.

Last nights events - TFA Prom - I had to skip to finish homework...

Exhaustion

I now know why Teach For America Institute is called teacher boot camp.

5:30 a.m. - wake up
7:15 a.m. - arrive at Sylvan Rodriguez Elementary
7:30 a.m. - 5:30 p.m. - Teach, lesson plan & attend workshops
5:30 p.m. - 11 or later...LESSON PLAN

I am exhausted. It's almost 9 p.m., & I am getting ready for bed. My average of 4-5 hours of sleep each night is rough.

On the bus ride home, some random chick fell asleep on me...#TFAproblems

The good news: I made it through my first week of teaching! I taught reading for the past week, & my class is a group of 8 wonderfully smart & generally well-behaved boys. I lucked out, because I've heard a lot of horror stories from other TFA corp members about their classes - students cussing, throwing stuff, etc.

Next week I teach math - improper fractions, mixed numbers, multiplication & division. I love math, so I'm really excited. Here's to hoping I learn how to be an even better teacher next week!

Sam Houston statue in Houston!

Day 1 of teaching: message from my Corp Member Adviser (CMA). Note the time...

Horned Frogs teaching for America - GO FROGS!

Coffee is my only friend nowadays.

First day of teaching notes from CMA

Johnathan's writing assignment today. He's quite the character :)

Ducks Fly Together

I am proud to say that I survived my first week of institute! My days go from about 5:40 a.m. - 11 p.m. (if I'm lucky), so needless to say, I am exhausted. 

I have been at school attending workshops from 7:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m., and then the rest of the day is spent lesson planning or working in groups on our assigned "homework."

***Dallas-Forth Worth region's mascot is a duck - hence, the title :)

Here is some of my week, in photos:

First day of institute! I was ready to go at 6:45 a.m., with my lunch box in hand. Looking ROUGH!

We take a bus every morning to get to our school - I am at Sylvan Rodriguez Elementary.

 

The library at Rodriguez. There are about 40 TFA 2012 corp members at my site as well.

I found out I was placed in a group led by a corp member adviser (CMA). Here's my CMA, & the note he wrote to me!

 

A note I got from a student at Rodriguez :)

Houston at 4:30 p.m. I sat on the back of the bus this day, and everyone was asleep back there except me, haha.

The entrance to Rice. Seeing this sign reminds me that my day is halfway over...

On the first day institute, the Dallas-Fort Worth, Rio Grande Valley, San Antonio, and Eastern North Carolina regions were welcomed to Rice at an opening ceremony. Naturally, we had to show DFW pride, so my region made a cheer to shout out.

DFW about to practice the cheer.

Mariachis greeted us at the ceremony.

Young mariachis!

Program for opening ceremony

Getting to work when the sun is rising!

My lunch box! Lunchtime is my fav.

 I start teaching my summer school class on Monday, so my group and I made a few signs to tape up around our classroom :)

Classroom signs

Our CMA has "office hours" after we finish at the school, where he helps us write lesson plans & such. Our nights are pretty late, considering how early we have to wake up...

Midnight work session

My favorite "monument" at Rice.

I am back in DFW for the weekend for a friend's wedding - shout out to JB & Taylor, CONGRATS!!! Truth be told, I am glad to have a slight break from training. I slept about 11 hours last night, and already feel re-energized and ready to go...oh, and the pizooki helped, too!

One Week Down, Five More to go

I AM HIRED!!!

I will be teaching bilingual elementary (either 4th or 5th grade) at T.A. Sims in Fort Worth, so exciting! I was hired Wednesday, June 6th in a REALLY odd way...by "speed interviewing!" I interviewed in both English and Spanish with about four principals - it was an exhausting process.

A TFA rule is that we must accept the first job offered to us - so I gladly accepted when Principal Andrea Harper offered a position :) There are quite a few corp members already at T.A. Sims, so I know that I will have a great support system.

A text received from Principal Harper, as well as the other TFA members joining T. A. Sims

Induction at SMU - a beautiful campus

Final induction dinner at Parkland Hospital

I am now at Institute at Rice - Houston, TX! I drove the 4.5 hours by myself. I forgot how beautiful Texas country is!

Houston city

If I had toured Rice University as a high school senior, I would have immediately applied. I am IN LOVE with this campus! I'm glad TCU worked out though.

There are about 900 people training at Rice from Houston, DFW, Rio Grande Vally, & North Carolina. I have literally been running around today like a chicken with its head cut off - driving, moving, unpacking, etc. These next few weeks will be chaos, but I am so excited to start. Apologies if the blog posts slow down!

Rice University is SO amazing.

My schedule. I have to catch the bus at 6:50 a.m. each morning to teach at PRIDE Academy...

My dorm room

Rice food is DELICIOUS.

The copy room - where all 900 of us will be printing throughout the 5 weeks.

Inspiration

The resource room filled with books and people.

"One day, all children in this nation will have the opportunity to attain an excellent education."