Why did I leave TFA?

I’ve noticed that another round of TFA interviews must have just passed as the traffic to the site bumped up and people were reading my past TFA posts.

For those of you checking out this site to get tips for your interview and caring to explore my more recent posts may be surprised that posts about teaching have ceased after a year.  Well, I’ll tell you up front, I dropped out, left the program, went on my own way.  The first thing that I ever quit before my committed time had run out.  But I don’t regret it.   For me, it was the right decision.

Without further ado, here are my reasons in no particular order:

• I didn’t enjoy it, I didn’t feel like I was making an impact.  (As I look back, I am sure that I did, for some students, but there were just so many that I don’t feel like I was just another teacher who didn’t teach anything)
• I didn’t feel like I taught anything, except on certain days, with certain classes did I feel like anything I said mattered.
• I didn’t feel respected by students or the administration at the school.  Stuck out back in the trailers, never visited by principals, never listened to, etc.  I know this isn’t entirely the students’ fault in that I did not do enough to earn their respect.
• My life changed.  Between the time of applying (and thinking that this will be my life for 2 years, not knowing what else was out there) and getting accepted I met a beautiful girl and missed her tremendously throughout the year.
• I didn’t feel fun anymore.  I was not there for people who depended on me when I felt that I HAD to be doing what I was doing.  I still feel terrible.  After days of stress in teaching, and being constantly poked, yelled at, teased (some students did, and even when they were teasing others, I remembered my days of being teased in school), my threshold for being poked fun of outside of school lowered and I became more irritated.  I still am working on getting back to my goofy, childish self.
• I wasn’t in it.  By about halfway through the year, still not holding control over my day-to-day activities, I began to lose heart.  I just couldn’t find the effort to try something new, with earnest.  I longed for the ‘easy fix’ that isn’t ever there.  It started to become very apparent when at TFA meetings in the beginning, everyone would be asking about how to get their class under control, but while time progressed, conversations switched to doing different and other activities.  It is very frustrating still feeling like you are square one, just trying to get control, let alone worrying about other activities.
• The grass was greener.  My other options, doing research, going back to school, moving in with my girlfriend, etc. seemed so much more attractive.  I am glad that I left, but I do still think about it, and wonder how everyone is doing.  I keep in touch with my roommates, who I loved living with.

Don’t let this list deter you from the program.  It is merely a glimse inside myself, for me so that I can get all of this out, and for you so that you can consider another point of view.  Your mileage may vary.

Practice tests…

With about 3.5 weeks until the end of grade tests (the important no child left behind kind of things) our school has implemented 3 days of practice tests.  By today, the third day of testing I can see that my homeroom is on their last nerve with these tests.  I look out into the sea of twitching, swaying, humming, lip-popping, doing-anything-to-amuse-themselves-during-this-test students.  Few can sit still for more than 30 seconds without rocking back and forth, flinging a pencil because “I was dancing”.  I don’t know if it is because they are just not taking it completely seriously, or because they are just middle schooler and can’t sit still, but the stuff that they are doing will result in them having a “misadministration” of the test, necessitating a retake for everyone in the room.  I worry; my homeroom has always been quite childish compared to my other classes (the rest are immature in other ways).

As an aside, during the testing periods, I got a little grading done.  One of my students put the date as 5-1-09, I left a note saying “already?”  Unfortunately, he didn’t do a bit of the worksheet because I sent him out for yelling.

This weekend:

Hanging out with Cara in D.C. (maybe scoring some free food/drink from the embassies)

Watching my lady race against some big novice women (they are but lightweights in a heavyweight world).  (open weight, excuse me).

Thursday

• I get to see Angela this weekend and every weekend until we leave for Europe!
• An awesome European vacation that is planning out nicely, coming up in 1.5 months.
• 4 hours of testing tomorrow where I get to sit on my bum and grade stuff that I’m behind on.
• mm, peanut butter twix.
• new toys
• just under 25 days of school left

GeeKomics*, and other things that make me smile

I originally started drawing these little pictures to express how I feel in the classroom.  These comics made me chuckle and laugh about things.  Much like how John, Katie and I had a running contest as to who would get new students latest in the year.  Due to my class being a year round course, I pitifully won by gaining new students as late as March.

Continuing to draw little comics, especially ones about rowing, was solely for the purpose of making myself smile.  I posted them to my site to try and make other people smile, too, but my secret hope is that most people say something like, “ugh, this guy has such a weird sense of humor.”  Greedily, success in that operation would actually make me smile more.

Now, of course, my little doodles (I don’t even know why I think I can get away with calling it a comic), are not the only things that make me smile.  I’ve really been trying to go to school with a more positive outlook.  I have been trying to increase strictness/consistency, as well as avoiding direct conflicts that just escalate bad  behaviors.   I have met marginal success, but it’s better than nothing.

Undoubtedly, my roommates have been supportive of me at school, as well as in my decision to not return next year.  I do appreciate this from them, and hope that they find my doodles disturbing and hilarious.  My family has also been supportive, especially my mom helping me find a new house and getting things lined up on that end.

Lastly, the one person I talk to more than anyone else and love every minute is coming to visit tomorrow (yay!).  The ultimate support and enforcer of inward contemplation; I don’t know what I’d do without my girlfriend.

*Even the name GeeKomics makes me smirk since it is so silly.  I originally thought that it should be pronounced as one work, “Geek – omics,”  but then realized that “Gee, comics” really captures the lack of sincerity that I put into each edition.  Finally, I concluded that the fact that I am even contemplating the “pronunciation” of a word that will as unlikely be pronounced as be found amusing, is utter madness.

Where has all the happy gone?

The last few weeks are going to be tough to get through.  My outlook is completely committed to not having to be in Henderson next year.  My attitude is very much, “just let me get through this so I can go home.”  I know that this is not what will help me to enjoy the rest of the year, but as of now, I’m not sure what else I have to keep me going through the end of the year.  When I still have students who can’t sit in their seats, or stop talking for 5 minutes, with only 8 weeks left in the school year, I just don’t feel like I’ve really made much of an impact to some of these kids.

I feel like it is taking all that I have just to get up in the morning and get myself to school, much less than I need to really put my full effort (or what would have been my full effort at the beginning of the year).  I need to work on regaining my positive attitude toward teaching so that I am not miserable for these last 2 months.

Back to School

So after essentially 5 days without the children, I went back to school.  It was a nice break, although the weekend was pretty crappy since I was feeling similarly.  But Monday and Tuesday I was feeling better, so it was more enjoyable.  

Anyway, today actually went fairly well.  I had reorganized the desks, and the seating chart.  Now, I can see all of my students at the same time, and I put my foot down on moving into other seats.  No more sitting where they want, doing what they want, I’m tired of it.  Now I just need to keep it up for 7 more weeks.

Amusing response

In response to the question: The scientists, Watson and Crick, made a model of DNA that was in the shape of a twisted ladder, what did they call this shape? 

The correct answer: Double Helix

One student’s amusing/misguided response: DNA Felix

sigh.

Worst pi day…ever.

My day started as normal as could be expected. But by the middle of the school day it had devolved into a screaming “unfairness” day. The students in my homeroom had planned a surprise birthday party for one of the team teachers to have during her class. They go to her during 6th period, word spreads to my 6th period class and they start the rumor that the teacher invited them (and me) to that party.

The screaming began when I said no, and that they had work to do and a quiz to take. Things got worse when a student got a hold of the telephone and called his mom. The next thing I know, I’m on the phone with his mother and she is asking why I’m not letting the class go to this party. I rather less than cooly explained that this class was already behind because few of the students ever do much work, including her son who throws his work on the floor as soon as I give it to him, and has refused to take the last 2 quizzes. She continued to ask me why I still couldn’t let them go. I finally said that I needed to teach my class, and I handed the phone back to the student. Oh, and this is the student that I had to track down at the beginning of the year and make multiple house visits before getting a chance to talk to his mother the first time.

Finally, I called the team teacher to ask her if, infact, these students had been invited to that party, to which she said no. She ended up coming over and giving my students another talking to about how rude they are and that she didn’t know about or even want her students throwing a party.

I scraped through the rest of the day and set out for Philly. The ride home was eventful to say the least.  I’ll be posting more about that later.

Today I will be off house hunting in the afternoon.

The woes of trailer teaching. Part 2

Some people must be fiddina (fixing to, planning on, etc.) mess with me.

bidnis.

The woes of trailer teaching. Part 1

The dogs have since been vanquished, however their memory lingers on in the recesses of my mind.