About this Blog
Journeys, challenges, & writings of a first-year teacher.
Time has been weird over the past few weeks. Stretched out til it’s raw, then hurriedly knit back together again, except now there are knots and broken parts. Loose threads everywhere. those damn loose threads. My last ten days of college were a mixture of senior events, sentimental goodbyes, rushed thank-you notes, rushed packing, & lots and lots of feelings that are too big and scary and messy to be dealt with in the frenzy leading up to graduation.
The title of this post comes from The Great Gatsby, a book I read in ninth grade that made me fall in love with literature and words and ideas. I’m so excited to teach 8th grade English next year because I genuinely love it – so much – and as I look back it is quite apparent the impact my English classes had on me. High school is weird as hell and…
Today I had the fortune and opportunity to visit my new school for an afternoon of in-classroom observations. In addition to meeting some of the teachers with whom I’ll eventually teach, I also got to meet the principal and one of the guidance counselors. I want to be very careful when writing about all of…
read more »In the days since my “panic” post, so many life changes have been happening. some are intentional, deliberate things I’ve done to make myself more prepared for what lies ahead. other things have just kind of fallen into my lap. together they have combined to give me more peace and calm as I approach the…
read more »In the spirit of honesty, openness, and real talk, I’ll tell you straight out: I’m panicking. Okay. Let’s back up. The past few weeks and months have been an odd mix of saying goodbye to things I was involved in and preparing to say goodbye to the people who mean the most to me.…
read more »In less than two days, I’ll be on my way to Louisiana, leading an Alternative Spring Break trip to an elementary school in a very low-income rural area. My co-site-leader and I purposely picked a group of student participants from our university who have varying levels of engagement with volunteering/community service/social justice. Some of the…
read more »This past weekend, I had the fortune and honor to attend a leadership retreat for freshmen & sophomores at my university. I’d been working on this project for ten months (I was one of the retreat coordinators) and as I reflect on the weekend, I am drawn to the ancient Greek concept of chronos time…
read more »The past three months since I got my TFA acceptance have essentially been one long exercise in relinquishing control. It’s ironic, really, especially considering TFA takes such great pains to recruit and select applicants who have been so purposeful/intentional about their respective life paths. I will unabashedly admit I am awful at giving up control,…
read more »I grew up on TeachForUs. I remember spending entire nights reading through it back in 2008, when I was a junior in high school. The idea of applying to TFA flitted in and out of my life with the contours of my college trajectory. In a moment of fear, I told myself I would never…
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