Teaching, to me, is like putting on a new leather glove: it fits, but I’ll be damned if there’s not some stretching and creaking required to make it comfortable.
I lost my first name a week ago. ...No, not lost: abdicated. I am now called “Ms. Manly” more often than I am called “Avalon,” by my colleagues, my partners, my superiors and my students. I have to call home just to hear the moniker that was mine for 22 years. “Ms. Manly” is a title so professional and untested that it seems distant from everything I actually am; it’s like a scrape that hasn’t scabbed, jarred against every shifting breeze, forcing me to be aware of it at every turn.
When I sit in the cafeteria, monitoring breakfast or lunch, it always takes me a moment to remember that the “Teachers!” summons from the loudspeaker indicates me. I also have to remember not to flinch like a guilty teenager when the disciplinarian addresses the hall sternly, because I'm not a student anymore; I'm faculty.
I lost my first name a week ago. ...No, not lost: abdicated. I am now called “Ms. Manly” more often than I am called “Avalon,” by my colleagues, my partners, my superiors and my students. I have to call home just to hear the moniker that was mine for 22 years. “Ms. Manly” is a title so professional and untested that it seems distant from everything I actually am; it’s like a scrape that hasn’t scabbed, jarred against every shifting breeze, forcing me to be aware of it at every turn.
When I sit in the cafeteria, monitoring breakfast or lunch, it always takes me a moment to remember that the “Teachers!” summons from the loudspeaker indicates me. I also have to remember not to flinch like a guilty teenager when the disciplinarian addresses the hall sternly, because I'm not a student anymore; I'm faculty.
I wear a suit every day now. One of my students asked me last week, “Ms. Manly, you always wear a suit? You sure do own a lotta suits.”
This is the same student who thinks it’s an abject travesty that I don’t own a TV, and that my having weekends is the most startling thing since the toaster oven.
I’m not sure why toaster ovens are startling. I think, when I was young, I was startled by a toaster oven, and now assume that the rest of the world found them as off-putting as I once did.
It’s bizarre to have this much automatic authority. It feels almost inorganic; just because I have a nametag, I suddenly have all the answers, know what to do in any given circumstance, am shepherd to a flock of young minds. It's daunting, to say the least.
I’m blessed and cursed by a classroom full of good kids - well, “full” is a subjective term, as my class is five strong this summer. I’m blessed because I can focus on the material, on molding how I teach to how they learn; I’m cursed because I am not obligated to practice unyielding management with them, and so I don’t. If my students in Algiers are more or unwieldy, I will almost certainly face struggles with correct behavior. The TFA motto is “100 percent compliance from 100 percent of the students 100 percent of the time.”
Crazy, right? But that’s the kinda thing we’re working on here. 100 percent mastery of 100 percent of the objectives by 100 percent of the students. And so forth.
Part of me - the perpetually disgruntled angel-headed hipster, the fiery but disquieted revolutionary - feels blatantly indoctrinated. That part of me yells and screams and scratches and snarls against the bars of the program, warning me darkly not to drink the Kool-Aid, to keep my eyes open and my mouth shut and my mind narrowed to a filter.
At first, I thought that was a problem. I thought that resisting the TFA philosophy was a sign of exactly how much I didn’t belong here, exactly how wrong TFA was to accept me. I worried that “the other shoe,” the “I’m sorry, honey, you’re in the wrong line, the janitors’ sessions are over here,” was going to drop at any moment, without warning or mercy.
But I was talking to my parents about it, and Dad reminded me that TFA selected me for a reason. Mom noted that they wanted who I was, not who they might try to make me into. Dad furthered that they hadn’t raised me to accept any philosophy without question or challenge, and that they’d be disappointed if that was how I chose to behave as a TFA corps member.
I’m still struggling to reconcile my philosophical departure from TFA’s mission with my earnestness to make a difference in this place. I think, honestly - and Jess and Matt will appreciate this - that I’m also struggling to act as part of a team. I’ve never been competitive at anything that involved other people. I was that kid who hated group work because I was the one who did everything; I grew up resigned to that fact. I’ve never been on a team, except maybe that one time in middle school, and I don’t think that counts because it was a trivia competition and, as such, short-lived.
Here, though, I’m on a few different teams. First, I’m on TFA’s team. I know that they’ve invested in me, and are available at every turn if I need help or answers or support. That’s sort of abstract, though, because that’s 38,000 people strong and nation-wide. On a smaller scale, I’m a member of the 2011 Atlanta Institute. There are 650 of us here this summer, all facing the same stressors, early mornings, crappy food and incredible workload. We have a FB group dedicated to sharing successes and struggles, requests for computer power cords and rides to the store, and what poor life choices we may make as a group this coming weekend.
On an even smaller scale, I’m a member of the GNO ’11 Corps. There are 183 of us - fewer, now, I think, as some of us dropped out along the way. I will be working with this group for the next two years. I’ve met perhaps 30 of us, but I like the vast majority, and have become close with a few.
Even more magnified, I am a part of the Kennedy/Brown (“Best in town!” as we shout at lunch) Middle School team. There are 48 of us here, new teachers all, overseen by a small group of alumni and staff. In this larger group, I am part of a team of four, Collab 1099 (which sounds like a prototype Terminator, I know), with whom I spend most of my time now. In that team is my co-teacher, Landry, who, it seems, I speak with more frequently than any other human on God’s green Earth. My collab is remarkable. For the first time in my life, I am relying on others in work that affects me greatly, as they rely on me; in our larger Kennedy/Brown team, I share a vision and a learning curve with nearly 50 individuals, as part of a collective. It’s a weird and alien experience to work as part of a team toward a common goal. It’s foreign to sense my independence as an asset rather than a necessity.
I’ve also discovered that (*gasp!*) I’m an introvert. I love people, I do. But after I hit my dorm at 5 in the afternoon, I don’t want to see another living, breathing soul until 6 the next morning, when I hit the breakfast hall. My time alone, sometimes talking with my parents or beau, is what energizes me and gives me the confidence and capability I need to finish writing my lesson plans and stand up the next morning and teach.
I’ve spent three weeks now in what is essentially teacher boot camp. Our identities have been removed; the places from whence we hail made immaterial; the regions and subjects to which we are assigned our most critical identifiers; our personal freedoms, space, schedules and, especially, sleep, have been invaded and made to conform to a deprived model; our daily garb exchanged for the uniform of the professional; the daily workload expanded by exponential degrees until I do more now in one afternoon than I did in a month of college; our individual rituals and processes subverted in favor of a group whole. I’m stressed, and exhausted, and full of frustrated questions, and my brain isn’t working as well as it did a month ago because I’m not sleeping as much as my body requires, and my patience levels are down and my irrational emotional reaction levels are up and I know I’m not giving my best, because if I gave my best it’d be all I had to give and I’d have nothing to come back with tomorrow.
My partner, Landry, told me a quote last week from former SNL comedian Tina Fey: “You don’t go on at 11:30 because you’re ready. You go on at 11:30 because it’s 11:30.” That’s been my mantra this week. I don’t call my lesson plans done because they’re perfect and I’m ready; I call them done because it’s midnight and I have to get up in five hours and teach that plan, ready or not.
At the end of the day, it comes down to this: I have students to teach, and I’ll be damned if every single one of them isn’t going to pass their determining exam in two and a half weeks and go on to high school. My stressors and philosophical conundrums matter naught in comparison to that reality - hell, until my students know the word “conundrum,” I have no room to complain. Like our curriculum specialist says, “They’re teaching you to to be a soldier in the middle of a war.”
But I think I’m doing well. I’ve been given no reason, by my students, colleagues or superiors, to believe otherwise. I have miles to go before I sleep, but I think I can cover some ground before it gets too dark to see.
Crazy, right? But that’s the kinda thing we’re working on here. 100 percent mastery of 100 percent of the objectives by 100 percent of the students. And so forth.
Part of me - the perpetually disgruntled angel-headed hipster, the fiery but disquieted revolutionary - feels blatantly indoctrinated. That part of me yells and screams and scratches and snarls against the bars of the program, warning me darkly not to drink the Kool-Aid, to keep my eyes open and my mouth shut and my mind narrowed to a filter.
At first, I thought that was a problem. I thought that resisting the TFA philosophy was a sign of exactly how much I didn’t belong here, exactly how wrong TFA was to accept me. I worried that “the other shoe,” the “I’m sorry, honey, you’re in the wrong line, the janitors’ sessions are over here,” was going to drop at any moment, without warning or mercy.
But I was talking to my parents about it, and Dad reminded me that TFA selected me for a reason. Mom noted that they wanted who I was, not who they might try to make me into. Dad furthered that they hadn’t raised me to accept any philosophy without question or challenge, and that they’d be disappointed if that was how I chose to behave as a TFA corps member.
I’m still struggling to reconcile my philosophical departure from TFA’s mission with my earnestness to make a difference in this place. I think, honestly - and Jess and Matt will appreciate this - that I’m also struggling to act as part of a team. I’ve never been competitive at anything that involved other people. I was that kid who hated group work because I was the one who did everything; I grew up resigned to that fact. I’ve never been on a team, except maybe that one time in middle school, and I don’t think that counts because it was a trivia competition and, as such, short-lived.
Here, though, I’m on a few different teams. First, I’m on TFA’s team. I know that they’ve invested in me, and are available at every turn if I need help or answers or support. That’s sort of abstract, though, because that’s 38,000 people strong and nation-wide. On a smaller scale, I’m a member of the 2011 Atlanta Institute. There are 650 of us here this summer, all facing the same stressors, early mornings, crappy food and incredible workload. We have a FB group dedicated to sharing successes and struggles, requests for computer power cords and rides to the store, and what poor life choices we may make as a group this coming weekend.
On an even smaller scale, I’m a member of the GNO ’11 Corps. There are 183 of us - fewer, now, I think, as some of us dropped out along the way. I will be working with this group for the next two years. I’ve met perhaps 30 of us, but I like the vast majority, and have become close with a few.
Even more magnified, I am a part of the Kennedy/Brown (“Best in town!” as we shout at lunch) Middle School team. There are 48 of us here, new teachers all, overseen by a small group of alumni and staff. In this larger group, I am part of a team of four, Collab 1099 (which sounds like a prototype Terminator, I know), with whom I spend most of my time now. In that team is my co-teacher, Landry, who, it seems, I speak with more frequently than any other human on God’s green Earth. My collab is remarkable. For the first time in my life, I am relying on others in work that affects me greatly, as they rely on me; in our larger Kennedy/Brown team, I share a vision and a learning curve with nearly 50 individuals, as part of a collective. It’s a weird and alien experience to work as part of a team toward a common goal. It’s foreign to sense my independence as an asset rather than a necessity.
I’ve also discovered that (*gasp!*) I’m an introvert. I love people, I do. But after I hit my dorm at 5 in the afternoon, I don’t want to see another living, breathing soul until 6 the next morning, when I hit the breakfast hall. My time alone, sometimes talking with my parents or beau, is what energizes me and gives me the confidence and capability I need to finish writing my lesson plans and stand up the next morning and teach.
I’ve spent three weeks now in what is essentially teacher boot camp. Our identities have been removed; the places from whence we hail made immaterial; the regions and subjects to which we are assigned our most critical identifiers; our personal freedoms, space, schedules and, especially, sleep, have been invaded and made to conform to a deprived model; our daily garb exchanged for the uniform of the professional; the daily workload expanded by exponential degrees until I do more now in one afternoon than I did in a month of college; our individual rituals and processes subverted in favor of a group whole. I’m stressed, and exhausted, and full of frustrated questions, and my brain isn’t working as well as it did a month ago because I’m not sleeping as much as my body requires, and my patience levels are down and my irrational emotional reaction levels are up and I know I’m not giving my best, because if I gave my best it’d be all I had to give and I’d have nothing to come back with tomorrow.
My partner, Landry, told me a quote last week from former SNL comedian Tina Fey: “You don’t go on at 11:30 because you’re ready. You go on at 11:30 because it’s 11:30.” That’s been my mantra this week. I don’t call my lesson plans done because they’re perfect and I’m ready; I call them done because it’s midnight and I have to get up in five hours and teach that plan, ready or not.
At the end of the day, it comes down to this: I have students to teach, and I’ll be damned if every single one of them isn’t going to pass their determining exam in two and a half weeks and go on to high school. My stressors and philosophical conundrums matter naught in comparison to that reality - hell, until my students know the word “conundrum,” I have no room to complain. Like our curriculum specialist says, “They’re teaching you to to be a soldier in the middle of a war.”
But I think I’m doing well. I’ve been given no reason, by my students, colleagues or superiors, to believe otherwise. I have miles to go before I sleep, but I think I can cover some ground before it gets too dark to see.
A.
____________________________
Peace to this young warrior, without the sound of guns.
