Ah, Friday.

My first week of teaching is officially over, and the learning curve, I have discovered, is quite steep. Every day I do something better than I did it the day before, but then I realize something else that I need to work on. I knew I wouldn't be an amazing teacher on day one, but, geeze, I underestimated it like Napoleon underestimated Russian winters.

Because my class is made up of fifteen boys and five girls, containing all the energy becomes an issue after about 9:00 in the morning. I made up a chant for character traits today to try and get out some of the energy. It went a little something like this:

Physical Trait! (Kids repeat the lines back to me)

Its what we look like!

Personality Trait!

Its what we like!

Its what we don't like!

Its what we doooooo!

It seemed to help for a bit, but there is only so much chanting I can do on three hours of sleep. Speaking of sleep, the weekend is upon us, and my suite mates and I are pretty impressed that we made it through the first official week of teaching. We're all hoping to get ahead in the next few days to try and end the seemingly never-ending game of catch-up. When we finish for the night, we're never actually finished. Finished = there is not enough energy left in my body to continue on. We steal moments on the bus and in-between meals and sessions to finish lesson plans or practice our delivery or grade assessments. Its amazing how productive we have all become in two weeks.

But life is definitely not all bad. I've met some pretty amazing people; people who could be doing anything and are here learning how to teach. One of the corps members, a retired judge, is sixty-five, and he's keeping up with the early wake-up calls and the constant work. Those are the kind of people TFA attracts, which is amazing to be a part of.

Yesterday, I got extremely angry. Not at a student, not at myself, but at some unknown entity that is our school system. Why was I angry? Because one of my students who is going into the third grade is reading at a pre-1st grade level. She struggles to write letters, let alone full, correctly spelled words. She's supposed to be learning how to predict what will happen next in a story, but she cannot write a full sentence. I am angry at an institution that has, so far, failed this child. But then again, that is why we are here, n'est-ce pas?

Anyway, enough ranting. It really feels good to be surrounded by talented people all working towards the same goal.

Love,

Miss Claiborn

Also, I love emails its just that I may not be able to respond due to time constraints. However, I still read and enjoy them!