One of the staff said that everyone who comes to Mississippi for Teach for America does one of the three M’s – they get married, they get a mutt, or they run a marathon. Dating someone you meet in Teach for America is common enough that Teach for America made a dating app joke for April Fool’s day.
If anyone’s dating in our corps, I haven’t heard about it yet, but there’s this feeling that it’s only a matter of time before people start pairing up.
Induction immediately followed Justice Journey, lasting the better part of this week. The main purpose of Induction is to get to know your region better, and understand the specific challenges the region faces. Induction started on Tuesday, with the rest of our corps moving into the dorms, and a party at the Grammy Museum, which was great. To welcome us to TFA-MS, there were a variety of speakers, and a video message for each of us from someone who we knew. Mine was from our advisor at the Western Herald, and it totally hit me by surprise – I had no idea that he had filmed anything, and I had no idea how they knew who to have make the video. Based on what I heard from other corps members, it was from one of many surveys we filled out prior to coming, and the question was asked for the name and contact information of someone who could speak to our character, professionally or personally. There was a letter from that person at the dorms when we came back from the Grammy Museum, and it was such a sweet gesture.
All week, we heard from different community members and TFA staff about the region. We heard from the head of TFA-MS about education issues in Mississippi, we divided into affinity groups to talk about race, we talked about our journeys to TFA and our purpose here, and we learned about culturally responsive teaching.
This week has been a constant stream of introductions. I feel like I’ve told people what my name is, where I’m from and what I’m going to teach upwards of 60 times. I’m so glad that I’m meeting new people and making friends, but I’m trying to balance that with having some time for peace and reflection. I find it really tiring to meet new people constantly, and that’s been a major part of being here.
It seems as though everyone in Cleveland knows that we’re part of Teach for America. I went to church with a group of corps members this morning, and nearly every person who said hi to us asked if we were with TFA, before we even spoke. It doesn’t bother me much to stick out, but I wonder what about me is so obviously not from here.
Across the country, every region that TFA serves hosts Induction in their own region, then many regions travel elsewhere to a national institute. In Mississippi, we have a national institute that serves five other regions – Appalachia, Arkansas, Greater New Orleans – Louisiana Delta, South Carolina, and South Louisiana traveling to train with us at Delta State University. I’m so grateful that we don’t have to travel to another region for Institute – I’m pretty settled into my dorm room at DSU, and I wouldn’t want to have to pack up and move again.
We start learning how to lesson plan and manage a classroom tomorrow, and we start teaching summer school a week from tomorrow. TFA staff seem really realistic about Institute, and that makes me glad – they’ve said multiple times that none of us will be transformational educators when we leave institute, or when we start teaching at our placements. Instead, the goal is to be on the path to becoming a transformational educator, and to be growing and improving all the way.