Happy Summer Solstice

Day 2: I was happy to get to sleep until 7:30AM.

Last night's dinner was really interesting, even though we'd been sitting all day. After a much-needed hour-long break, we were bussed to the State Legislature in Hartford. We were fed buffed-style and seated in the grand stone lobby, where we were engaged by three great and different speakers.

First, Dr. Adamowski, the Hartford school superintendent famous for kicking off a serious reform effort, told us both about the crippling Achievement Gap in Connecticut and his confidence in our ability to make a significant change. The second speaker was an 8th grader attending Choate next year on a full scholarship, who told us a story about how TFA teachers have changed her life. Almost everyone was in tears. The last speaker is a current corps member (CM) who interspersed anecdote with spoken-word teaching theory, including a tear-jerker about a pregnant 14-year-old that he taught who now just finished her first year at a 4-year college, successfully juggling childcare and pre-law. After tears were shed, we took buses back to the hotel to play Scrabble and enjoy a late night happy hour.

Today:
Although I'm not very good at sitting still and listening, it's nice to learn a couple of good teaching techniques. A second day of being profound about fixing education in our country is a bit much.

Today's morning lesson was quite frustrating. Of our 90-minute lesson of an introduction to Connecticut, the first 30 minutes or so were spent discussing, in groups, why we want to learn about Connecticut and what we were going to learn.

Really? Can't we just learn the stuff already?

The "learning" that followed would have been perfect for a group of unmotivated 12-year-olds with no access to a library or computer. Each table was split into four pairs, and each pair had a specific topic (mine was history). Each pair received a topic-specific packet, with instructions on how to divide the work among the pair. We had 10 minutes to read the material and another 10 minutes to prepare a 4-minute presentation on our topic with our partner. Then, each pair presented to the table, followed by more time to discuss our feelings. We were constantly told how impressive we were to do so well on such a challenging task.

Fantastic. Any of us could have completed the same task in 15-20 minutes on the internet.

When that activity was finally over, we had a panel on teaching as learners, or constantly continuing to learn. It was nice to hear current and past CMs stories of struggling, learning, and succeeding, and there were some very useful pearls of wisdom. But, I was pushed up the anxiety scale just a little further.

Pearls of Wisdom:
Get to know your students
Don't try to learn or excel at everything at the same time
Saying something doesn't mean that you are teaching it
Failing at something the first time sucks, but then you fix it

Then I ate way too much for lunch. Lunchtime included a panel of exceptional education advocates and community members. It was interesting, but why can't they just feed us? Can't we take an hour to stop having information and motivation indiscriminately thrown at us?

By the way, the other CMs are wonderful. I've made many friends and expect to make many more, before the week is out. I'm exhausted, but happy. It's nice to finally be working hard after an entire year of less than that.

It's also fun to be blogging again. It helps sort and layer the mudslide of information and feelings. (Earth Science metaphor!)