What you need to know before you arrive: Part II

We are your best resource -- USE IT

This program works because of the participants. You will quickly find that, with few exceptions, your classes are designed to allow MTC to award us all degrees a few years from now. Not to teach you anything you don't know. MTC is a competitive program, which means that you are smart and capable. You don't need professional development, you don't need to sit in class for six hours most saturdays. But you do (probably) need MTC to get certified and help you find a spot, so since you'll be driving to Oxford anyway, make the most of it.

You will be living, working, eating, and breathing with each other for the first two months. You will get to know each other. To a lesser extent, you will get to know us.

Come June 29th, the second years will leave Oxford. Come August, you will be teaching your own class. The first few months of school will be some of the longest of your life, but the summer will fly by, so have fun, live it up, but don't waste an opportunity to learn. The cross country assistant coach at my school was recruited at Parish's. The tutoring club that I sponsor got its start at Ajax Diner. Don't wait for the opportune moment to ask a question or address an issue you are having -- ask. Ask ten people, ask your mentors and your roommates and ben and ms monroe, let everybody give you the best they've got and you figure out what you want to do with it.

You WILL receive a ton of conflicting advice. We like to talk a lot, you like to talk a lot, and most of us have ideas worth sharing. Listen, talk, don't let it stress you out, and always take what you want and leave the rest. You will have your own style, that's why you will be effective. The worst piece of advice for you might be the best for the girl sitting next to you. No worries on that count.

What I learned from my classes this summer:
How to write a lesson plan

What I learned from other people in the program:
-how to manage a classroom (E.S.)
-that I do some things right (A.M.)
-How to project confidence
-How to play it off (C.C.)
-How my school works (this is a biggie -- Dake and Jave, and all the beautiful brave souls who started the year with me as first-years)
-That we really DO all have different styles and that's REALLY OKAY (the sooner you're okay with this, the better you will be) (J.K., W.S., and the rest of my TEAM)
-That having a year of experience doesn't fix all your problems ... and that's okay, too
-How to survive 9-wks grades and massive posterboard projects (thanks, jake)
ETC ...

Basically... you'll get to know each other, you won't all like each other, but the beautiful thing about MTC is that nobody comes to the mississippi delta to make money and if you think you're here to do charity work you'll change your mind or leave, so we're ALL HERE FOR BASICALLY THE SAME REASONS. we all want to do a good job, we basically all want to help each other, and believe it or not you will be a heck of a lot busier in the fall than you are over the summer so make the most of it, kids. Nobody's as intimidating or as big of a jerk as you think they are ... and if you're sure you don't need any help at all, let me know how that's going roundabout october. Pay attention, think about things, ask questions, try, and it'll all fall into place sooner or later.

If it worked, we wouldn't be here: What you need to know before you arrive

If it worked, we wouldn't be here.

So said a second-year MTC-er when I stormed into his classroom irate that the district had given me a nine-weeks exam to replace the one I had been promising to my students on the novel we had actually been WORKING ON ALL TERM. According to the syllabus I received from the other English I teacher there were actually supposed to be two novels, so I set a breakneck pace for the first and had it complete by parent-teacher conferences, during which I also handed out a reading/presentation schedule for the remainder of the term (second novel). The next day during professional development I was told that the first novel was coming along slower than the other teacher had anticipated so we would postpone novel number two to the fourth nine weeks. So I had four weeks to kill with a novel we'd finished reading. Surprisingly it worked out well and we spent the time productively, but parents were confused, students were annoyed, and by the time we took the exam at the end of the nine weeks (testing has to be uniform across a prep) my students had read the book a good 4 weeks earlier. Add in to the mix a district exam that I got the morning I was to give my nine weeks exam (25 pages long, handed to you the morning of with five minutes till the bell and a line six people long for the copier and you are expected to run thirty copies for your class ...) and the exam on the novel had to be postponed until AFTER spring break. make that a six-week gap between reading and testing.
And I'm the one who will take the heat if the scores are low, in our weekly data inquiry meetings in which we talk about who and how we are all failing.

If it worked, we wouldn't be here.

The sooner you are able to INTERNALIZE this, the easier your life will be. Because it really sucks when the schools does things that screw you over. Lack of notification for required documents. EEF supplies that arrive in April (I still don't have all of mine, got the first bit a week before spring break). Lack of support/communication/consistency in general. But where it's really going to get frustrating is when THEY do things that screw over YOUR kids and YOU have no control over it. none. That's when you have be furious, think how awful the system is, take a breath, and remember ... if it worked, we wouldn't be here.

The fact that it doesn't work is why most of us won't be here two years from now. The fact that it doesn't work is why they need us so badly, why it's so frustrating, and probably the single most important thing to know before you get here. You will learn all summer long how to teach, what types of problems you will be facing, and how to deal with them. What they can't prepare you for is going through it every day.

The very second year who provided me with such an apt and oddly comforting explanation was ready to tear his own hair out yesterday due to a completely different but similarly idiotic situation. That part doesn't go away, that part doesn't get better. That part is why we're here, in schools with no support, in crazy no-name towns in the mississippi delta, in dysfunctional environments.

If it worked ... we wouldn't be here.

If Soujourner Truth was alive today ...

My Letter for Woman's Rights

by M. W.

I think if Sojourner Truth was still alive today. She would be dispointed at the young black woman today, because in our generation today, black woman are having babies. Black woman are not teaching the children right. I also think Sojourner Truth say that she tryed so hard to stand up for woman rights, and now they have abruse them. So I think Sojourner Truth would be very dispointed at the young "Black Womans" today.


A Man Over There

by M.B.

A man over there say
A woman can't work like a man,
She needs his help, she needs his helping hand

A man over there say
We need to be house wives,
We need to make food with forks and knives

The man over there
He need to look again,
We can do the same, or even more than a man

A man over there say
We can't leave our homes
He say when we talk to him it has to be in a low tone

But the man over there,
That is saying all this stuff
Don't realize my life been bad and really really rough

I'm here to say that the man over there,
Needs to shut up, he's wrong
That's why I'm here today reciting my poem

A man over there,
That is listenting to my speech
Now knows that we have our own minds and we not scared to speak

Almost a Second-Year ( and kids who feel entitled)

** all ideas and opinions expressed in this article are held by the author, who does not claim to represent the wider view of the program's many illustrious members **

First and second nine weeks were about getting by, third nine weeks was about learning how to do a little more than that, and fourth nine weeks, it would appear, is about making some tough decisions.

We know the schools need us now. We see the incompetence all around and realize that probably, no matter how bad we were to start off with, we're doing better than the average Joe by improving and possibly even more important simply by TRYING. Not a single last one of us hasn't made an effort, say what you will.

And now that we know, we have power. And now that we've run the gauntlet, some of us want to get out. Most of us have seen a few things that worked and a multitude of things that didn't, most have realized by now how sad the system is and that the newest teachers get the worst deals and the least support, that once you're in you get smaller classes, fewer preps, better pay, and more support, that once you know the people who have the same preps as you your job gets a little easier, that once you've made allies you get a little less flack for not having all your ducks in a row ...
This is sad because we do have a teacher shortage, because you're worsening the conditions for your most at-risk teacher population (1-5 years), and because most teachers quit because conditions are already bad enough. You shouldn't be tested with fire your first year, the hardest classes shouldn't be DUMPED on first-year teachers, and you shouldn't have a hundred percent yearly turnover for your state-tested, high-stakes courses.

A lot of things shouldn't happen, in fact, and it's a lot easier to see that now and it's a lot easier to see ways out.

We saw white bratty high school students at wendy's this weekend and we were kind of disgusted, we see clinton kids with their long hair and their parents' credit cards and we hate them a little bit, but their schools have enough toilet paper in the bathroom and their schools don't run out of lunch food before the last block and their schools probably start class on time.

And, just guessing, we kind of assume that at their schools if you cuss a teacher out you get some consequences for it.

And we think these things and we kind of want to be at their schools.

But if we're at our schools next year, if we stay and decide to fight the good fight one last time, things are changing, because now we know. We're entitled too, now, and we're not new and we're not getting screwed a second time. WE are not teaching four preps next year, we are not having class sizes over the legal limit, we are going to be subject to ridiculous expectations and mounds of paperwork and incompetent administrators and inconsistent enforcement of school policies but we AREN'T coming in without a say.

We're not great yet, but we're trying. We will work hard, we have improved, and if our school districts want the best for their students they will make minimal accommodations and keep us where we're needed most. But none of us are going through that again.

Johnnie Franklin

And what we think about that.

For those of you who aren't members of the illustrious class of 2008, Johnnie Franklin, the governor's advisor on education, told us this weekend that we needed to get over the "poor teacher" mentality because the attitude is the majority of the problem, and, really, if you look at it, we don't get paid that badly after all. And besides, he continued ... NOTHING is as meaningful as the student who came up to him two weeks ago and said "thank you, mr. franklin. You made a difference."

*cough*

His point: Teachers actually get very good pay and good benefits for the job that we do, so we should get over the poor teacher mentality and that would make everything better.

My point: That's a load of crap.

Few comments on that theory...

FIRST:
Nobody gets into teaching for the money. Opportunities for advancement AREN'T all that great, the salary isn't outstanding for the man hours worked, and the entry-level stress is off the charts. This is common knowledge, and I don't think even Johnnie Franklin would argue with that (although, after forty years in education he's never had a bad day, so ... whatever).

So the problem ISN'T the pay or benefits, we all come into it ALREADY BELIEVIEVING that the most meaningful part of the job is changing lives. NOT feeling sorry for ourselves. Most teachers are here for a reason.

SECOND:
Very few people LEAVE teaching because they aren't getting ENOUGH money. He told us HIMSELF that the top three reasons teachers cite for leaving their jobs are, in order of importance, lack of support from the administration, lack of support from the community, and a sense that the community does not value education.

So the problem STILL isn't the money. We came into for the right reasons, believing that we could change lives, and we got BURNED OUT by a lack of administrative support and probably an overwhelming work load, feeling like all the odds were stacked against us.

THIRD:
The teacher shortage is at least as much about retaining teachers as about getting new ones to come in. If the problem is retaining teachers, you're certainly taking the wrong angle to say the problem is the mentality and if everyone wasn't so unreasonably down on teaching that there would be a lot more teachers. Yes, I'll agree that public opinion is that you don't go into teaching to make the big bucks, but he already told us (the data, in fact, told us) that money's not the big issue here. And, sidenote, let's be honest, guys ... you DON'T go into teaching to make the big bucks!
So, if the problem is about retention, and if teachers don't quit their jobs because of money and if (also according to surveys) paying them more would not be the best way to incite them to stay, then it seems a bit ridiculous to drive this whole point on how much we make versus how much we work. Yes, we work a lot, and yes, plenty of us would be happy to argue that point too because I think few people realize how many man hours do go into doing a decent job at this gig, but THAT'S NOT THE PROBLEM. We don't quit because we're underpaid, we don't even quit because we're overworked, WE QUIT BECAUSE WE GET NO SUPPORT. So to turn around and say that you could solve the teacher shortage by advertising what a sweet deal we get financially when THE DATA is right there telling you that the problem IS NOT IS NOT IS NOT ABOUT THE MONEY ... just doesn't make sense.

Good work, Mr. Franklin. And better luck convincing your next crowd.