The Institute Experience

I could probably talk for pages and pages about Institute. I’m going to try not to. Again, I’m going to be looking for the highs, too.

• Every morning began at 5:05am. My roommate and I would curse our existence, saying things no prospective teacher should ever say, then hit snooze. Inevitably, the alarm would go off again, and being on the late side, we would need to rush to get downstairs.

• Once downstairs I filled my bright blue lunchbox (provided by TFA – we all got them) under the watchful eyes of TFA staffers. Since we were the first people getting lunch, the plethora of food was exciting, but I think we took too much the first two days and others didn’t get any food. Oops. So we were closely monitored (fruit or carrots, not both). I got a tofu wrap every single day. I always appreciate the thought to include a vegetarian option, so that’s a high. The low was the amount of tofu – altogether, I think it probably amounted to a pair of dice. One die in each side of the wrap. But, when I put enough mustard and Italian dressing on it, I actually kind of miss it in a bizarre, nostalgic way.
  

• I think breakfast was my favorite time of day. We (a bunch of friends from my teaching group) would cram into a booth with our watery coffee and bagels and laugh uncontrollably in our delirious, probably legally insane, state.

• At 6:20, all 99 Sharpstown teachers boarded three big yellow school buses. (I'd like to take a minute here for readers to close their eyes and imagine 99 bleary eyed, 20-somethings emerging from Moody Towers in "professional dress," carrying heavy backpacks, bright blue lunch boxes slung over their shoulders, boarding big yellow school buses...I crossed my fingers every single day that none of my students would ever see my lunch box or the buses. I could just imagine my credibility vanishing in an instant.) The buses left at 6:25 sharp, and many of us promptly fell asleep. Again, we probably looked uber professional getting off the buses at school wiping drool off our faces and crusties out of our eyes.

• Our first Curriculum Specialist session started at 7:20, followed by another one at 9:00. These sessions covered all sorts of different topics ranging from how to interact with co-workers, how to employ the diversity competencies, how to internalize TFA's core values, how to lesson plan, execute material effectively, and align our assessments with our learning objectives each and every day.

• Twice a week we had Literacy Specialist training - how to teach literacy in every content area.

• Lunch at 10:30.

• Some weeks I had lunch duty at 11. I would walk around the cafeteria during this time, monitoring the subtle and intricate relationships that exist among pre-teens. It was overwhelming. Cafeterias are not my favorite places.

• 11:30 - 1:01 Ms. McGrath's 6th grade English Language Arts class took place in classroom A220. I’ll talk about my class in the next entry.

• 1:05 – 2:30 I had a free block. This is when I could grade things, think about my lesson for the next day, and actively reflect on how I was doing. These were the things I could do, but really the time flew by and I really only got to decompressing and breathing at a normal rate for a fleeting moment. During this time I could also observe other corps members teaching, which was pretty cool to do. Everyone has such a particular style and it’s fun to see people’s personalities come out while in “teacher mode.”

• 2:30 – 4:00. More sessions. These ones focused on lesson planning or debriefing with our CMA (corps member advisor – lots and lots of acronyms in TFA). Our CMA was the bomb and really helpful when we each had one on one meetings with her – we talked about our strong areas and our “deltas,” or areas of improvement. This part of the day was good, too, because our whole CMA group was together and we could reflect as a group on how we were doing. I was so lucky and got an amazing CMA group – they’re the bomb.

• We left at 4, and since I ate lunch at 10:30, I went straight to dinner. And basically, after dinner, I started working. Always, we would have to prepare for the next day – and if you were like me, revising my lesson plans took a while because I had to take into account the input my CMA had, then figure out my minute-to-minute plan (my favorite TFA quote is: “If you don’t have a plan for your students, they will have a plan for you.” I took that to heart and over-planned so that I wouldn’t get caught in a tight spot – it sometimes worked), and then gather all my materials. Monday nights we had to also hand in two rough drafts of upcoming lesson plans. Then Wednesday night we had to turn in three rough drafts. This is why I did not sleep.

• This was basically the schedule for 5 weeks. On the weekends, I did not do much of anything. Sometimes drove around to explore Houston, sometimes went to a movie or something, one or two times had a beer, but more or less I slept a whole lot!