I’ve spent the bulk of the past two weeks packing my belongings and saying goodbye. It’s funny, both how much stuff I’ve accumulated and how many people I feel like I have to say goodbye to.
I’ve also been watching videos and reading articles as part of the assigned pre-work from Teach for America, Mississippi. There were videos about race and HIV and poverty overall. I feel like I’m gaining context, but I can’t know, fully, what it will be like until I’m there.
I’m going to leave for TFA on Thursday, June 2. I’ll drive from Kalamazoo to Memphis and spend the night there, then make the short drive to Cleveland on June 3. I’m doing the Justice Journey, although I’m not exactly sure what the Justice Journey is. I’ve been told that it’s going to feature a variety of perspectives on what Justice means to different people in Mississippi, and that it’s a good way to meet people in the corps in a smaller setting than the whole of institute. I hope that I’ll be able to learn more about Mississippi and the issues the region faces during Justice Journey.
I have all sorts of silly little questions about what living in Mississippi will be like. Will I acquire an accent? Will there be grits and biscuits and gravy for breakfast at Institute? Will they have craft beer in Mississippi? Will I get Zika virus? I ask these questions to distract myself from the whole, the bigger issue – in two months, I’m going to have a classroom of seven or eight year olds, and I’m going to be responsible for teaching them something. That’s scary, it really is.
They’ll teach me how to do it at Institute, of course, but I’m not sure that will be enough. I’m fairly sure that it won’t be enough, I’m sure that there will be plenty to figure out as I go along, and that some situations I encounter will be ones that I’m wholly unprepared for.
Comments
Your first year of teaching will be the hardest one of your life. You will be sleep deprived, you will cry, you will think that you can’t do this. But, you are smart. You will figure it out. You made two important statements…..the first that they can’t teach you everything. You are right. You will have years of learning how to teach ahead of you. It takes at least three to be really good.
Second, there will always be situations that you cannot foresee. You cannot learn ahead of time how to handle these situations. But you are prepared. You will use all that you know and all that you feel to make good choices as to how to respond. You will look back and be proud to know you did the best you could at that one moment in time.
That is part of the joy of teaching.