When I started this bog, I envisioned posting at the end of each week so that I wouldn’t forget the experiences that I encountered. At Institute, I found myself unwilling to spend any of the precious free time that I had writing. I really wish I made time for it then, because I think it could have alleviated some stress and forced me to reflect on the experience. But alas, I must move on.
I could ramble on for pages and pages about the early mornings, late nights, long bus rides, bad cafeteria food, and insane amount of work that I put in that comprised my five-week experience in the Teach For America summer institute. But, that’s not really what I want to talk about.
This post is about my support system I had at Institute – namely the people who helped me through the hard times and helped me celebrate the victories. My next four posts will be about specific students who I worked with this summer. Five posts will represent the five weeks that I spent in Queens this summer, and they will be about the people who made the experience what it was to me.
When I talk about people who supported me in this experience, it’s crucial that I talk about the people who shared the load with me – fellow corps members who I lived with. They fought the same battles in their own classrooms each day. I was lucky enough to live with people who really kept me grounded. They were the type of girls who would work their tails off for their students, but would also admit when they needed a break and drag me off to get ice cream to chill out. We vented to one another, pulled our hair out together, practiced lessons together (even though we all taught different subjects), and watched mindless TV when we needed a break. It was so essential to have people like that in my life during this all-too-stressful time.
Beyond my lovely suitemates was my Corps Member Advisor (CMA), who was my coach, my mentor, and my teacher through the entire process. My CMA was a vital reason why I didn’t break down DAILY. During the first week of Institute, I was frustrated with her. I felt like she wasn’t providing me with the answers that I sought so badly. She made my lesson planning harder than it needed to be because she didn’t give me enough guidance during the learning process. What I soon realized, however, was that while I felt totally shafted by my CMA, I learned to find the answers that I needed all on my own. I learned to exhaust every resource at my disposal before going to her with a problem. Thus, after just a week at Institute, I was more prepared than many of my fellow corps members to be an independent learner and teacher. She continued to support me throughout Institute, but she never simply gave me the answers. She taught me that while it’s fine to ask for help when you need it, relying on yourself first and foremost puts your in control of your own experiences.
Another crucial member of my own personal safety net was the curriculum specialist at my school. His job was to present different sessions to us about diversity, classroom management, investing students, and a whole host of other topics. But he went so far above those duties every day that I often told him that I had no idea how I would survive my first year of teaching without him. In the middle of my first week of Institute, I realized that my first lesson plans (which I spent a combined 7-8 hours working on) were not up to par; I needed to re-write them. But time wouldn’t stop for this to happen – I still needed to work on other time-consuming projects which were coming due sooner than later. With the weight of this crashing down on me (in the middle of a public session), I stood up to leave the room. I was so stressed out about how I could be this far behind so early in the game that I felt I needed to cry. So, I stepped out of the lecture hall only to be faced with my curriculum specialist. He saw the look on my face and pulled me into a room close by to find out what was wrong. Through hiccups and a flood of tears, I told him my concerns. And, as I would find was typical of him in the coming weeks, he had the answers that I needed. He sat down with me to come up with a plan that would allow me to get it all done in an appropriate amount of time. He made it seem doable (something he would do for me many times throughout Institute). Without him there to make everything seem reachable, who knows how many more times I would have broken down publicly.
My experience this summer was a rollercoaster to say the least. Within one single day I could experience an array of emotions unlike anything I ever went through before. But that’s the nature of the work that I chose. One of the most valuable lessons that I took away from Institute was to find those people who make the ride less jolting – the ones who will listen to you and be your support, the ones who will shake you when you’re being too much of baby to see that it’s NOT the end of the world, and the ones who have the ability to shed light on a situation in a way that you hadn’t considered. Those are the people that will make this two year experience transformational for me and my students.
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