What I Did On My Summer Vacation

Today was the last day of the 2007 Teach For America Houston Summer Institute. At closing ceremonies, a corps member performed a dedication in which she talked about a "Wish You Were Here" postcard from a friend in Portugal and said she wished her friend was here, seeing the injustices we are facing and the progress we are making.

No matter what, I will never be able to fully express or articulate what exactly I did on my summer vacation. But I will attempt a final reflection on the past few weeks: They have been the hardest weeks of my life. I have been physically, mentally, and emotionally pushed to the limit and beyond.I have learned so much, probably much more than I have ever learned in such a short time. I have been exposed to so many things I never expected and could not have predicted. I have led a classroom of students to achieve significant gains over four weeks of instruction. I have learned about and taught a subject I had no prior knowledge of. I have interacted with students on a daily basis and realized that middle schoolers are an incredible challenge. You need to strike that balance between being a respected teacher they will work hard for and a friendly but too lenient teacher who lowers expectations. I have learned to set high expectations, deliver clear instructions, hold students accountable for their actions and achievement. I have joined a movement that is working to close the achievement gap. I have joined a committed group of citizens, dedicated to change, relentlessly pursuing those results and never giving up on their students. I have met the students I have been talking about, learning about, and hearing about for almost a year now. I have talked to students that don't have homes or phones. I have taught kids who have been through more in 12 or 13 years than I have been through in my entire life. I have met kids who have to deal with things I never even considered, like not having a home phone number because they didn't have a home. I have worked with kids for whom the circumstances transpired against, but who succeeded. And maybe it was just that-one summer. I am almost positive their month with me was not as powerful to them as it was to me, but I hope that it had some impact, however brief. But I can only hope that I can take these experiences and mindsets and apply them in my region to motivate my students to beat the system and excel, not only in my class, but for the rest of their lives.

Today, one of my students missed class. I was disappointed that I didn't get to say goodbye to her, or tell her that she'd rocked out on the test--passed the test at the TFA standard, achieved over 100% of her growth goals, and only missed 2 questions. But I had written a positive note to her family telling them how great their students had done. As we were breaking down our classroom, our school director came and found me and asked me about that student, saying her mother was there and was anxious to know about her grades. I went out to see her and told her what a terrific job her daughter had done, and her other three teachers also joined us. She told us about her daughter's experiences at another school across town during the regular year, when she was living with her father. The teachers told her she couldn't do it and wasn't going to pass. Their negative energy was awful for the student, and brought her down. It also made her self-conscious and unaware of the power of her own knowledge. It clicked for me and the other three teachers who had the student as we listened to her mother talk about what her daughter had been through. In my class, she had often expressed, "I can't do it" or "I don't understand, what are we doing?" I just pushed through it, and kept telling her to keep it up. This was more a function of my inexperience and attempts to concentrate on the students with behavioral problems, but I see now that it was a positive attitude to take with her, because she COULD do it and DID understand, she just didn't know that she was able to.

Seeing her do well had been a high point for me. Another high point was telling another student he had an A in my class. He had stared at me in disbelief, happy and shocked, as I told him how well he was doing. He received an A on the test, achieved over 100% of his growth goals, and only missed 1 question.

And now, on the last day of classes, as we are about to go into our fall placements, this woman was telling us we had made a difference in her daughter. "Your vocation," she kept telling us, telling us we had what it takes to be teachers. I have been skeptical throughout the process, and I still am, but that was a major energizer and confidence booster. The best part was that she told us her daughter said she really liked all of her teachers this summer and wished they could be her teachers all year. She said she was going to show her report card to her teachers at the other school to show them what she could do and that she had learned more with us than she had throughout a whole year at the other school. She told her mother about our program, and her mother took the time to express to us her appreciation for what we did this summer.

These are stories just like the ones we have heard about. And now I have one, too. But there are so many other students and so many other stories out there, waiting for a teacher to guide and a student to take action and finish the story. This is why I teach for America.