(no subject)
So I want to apply to Teach for America, which is ironic because when the recruiters came to my classes this winter, I thought that program was idealistic at best. (I still do, actually.) I felt like listening to my fellow college students rave about a program they hadn’t yet participated in was a waste of my time. These students weren’t even education majors so what did they know about teaching? And while the they understood all sorts of social theories about poverty, I found it hard to believe that any of them had actually experienced it to any great degree. Personally, I wasn’t interested in teaching, as a career, or even a pre-career. I mean, I love to teach, but nothing intimidates me more than a classroom full of children. And inner-city children? I wouldn’t know where to begin. I was certain they wouldn’t respect me or even listen to me. And if I wouldn’t be able hold their attention, how could I teach them?
If the last three weeks has taught me anything, it’s that applying for the program with that attitude of disinterest, pessimism, and pure terror would have been a waste of my time.
They probably wouldn’t have let me into the program. And if they had, I’m sure I would have run screaming. As Ms. P says, “Teaching these children is something you really have to want to do. It really is.”
And now I do. I really do.
It’s almost a complete 180 degree turn from where I was before, and I’m having some difficulty processing it myself. So I’ve decided to start journaling about my experiences at Dryades YMCA Summer Enrichment Camp, NOLA because that is where the change is happening. The children I’m working with are weaseling (and these children can weasel) their way into my heart. I want to spend much, much more of my life making certain these children are receiving the attention they so desperately crave.
When Avis, my site director assigned by the AmeriCorps VISTA Summer Initiative dropped me off at Ms. P’s classroom, that first Tuesday morning two and a half weeks back, I had no idea what I was getting into.
No, really. I knew nothing. I didn’t hear the teacher's name or the age of the students. I wasn’t informed as to my duties in the classroom. No one told me where I was to eat lunch or if I got breaks or when I was supposed to meet the class each morning or how long I was supposed to stay each day.
So I just jumped in. I walked around the classroom and asked each child their name. (I messed them up so badly because I'd never heard most of them before. E'shante? Emanee? Malik?) The teacher told me they were between second and third grade, but that most were much, much closer to second. I didn’t know what she meant. (After spending an hour encouraging Eric, an eight year old who has already given up on school, to read ten pages of Hop on Pop, I do.) I spent the rest of morning answering calls of “Miz Alex, you help me spell ‘happy’?” and “Miz Alex, you sharpen my pencil?”
That’s enough for now, I think. More tomorrow for sure.