5 more weeks of school.
That's about 3 weeks longer than most of my friends but I don't mind. I'm actually really excited to share those extra weeks with the students I've grown to love so much. I'm excited to meet the new staff for our school and to be able to talk with the new corps members about what it really takes to be a transformational teacher. [side note, just used an html code and felt like I was writing on live journal. It made me super thankful that when I first started social networking on the internet, it was necessary to know the occasional html code. Now kids just type and press click. Crazy.]
But I would be lying if I said I wasn't, in a lot of ways, ready for summer. I've dedicated myself to sticking to my summer work plan and not drowning myself in education reform and effective teaching strategies like I am apt to do during breaks. I plan to read Emily Giffin books and revisit my favorite collections of essays (David Foster Wallace, it's been a while). I plan to buy a sewing machine and channel my inner Pam Brown to try recreating pieces from the anthro website before buying them. I plan to bake and decorate our house and drink coffee and tea and sleep.
It will be some kind of wonderful.
But, for now, I have five more weeks. I woke up this morning thinking about relentless pursuit. For those of you that are hip to TFA lingo, you already know that in the beginning "relentless pursuit" was one of the major tenants of Teach for America. Corps members were reminded over and over that they needed to be relentless in their pursuit of excellence for their kids and for the educational systems of America. By the time the 2011 corps members showed up, the philosophies had shifted a bit and were more focused on the transformational change part, at least in my view. The idea seemed to be: the kind of people who come into TFA are already going to be relentless, we don't have to push them. Today, when I was getting ready to go work on lesson plans, I realized that I did not have a clue what relentless pursuit meant before this year. I didn't have to.
Before last summer I would have said that I had relentlessly pursued everything I had gotten in my life: to get scholarships and internships and good grades and to get into law schools and then to get into TFA... Today I am painfully aware that I did not. Don't get me wrong - I worked hard for those things and I would never say that they simply came to me. To do so would, I think, undermine the importance of accomplishments not just for me but for anyone who had achieved similar things. But I was certainly not relentless in my pursuit of those things. Because (and here's my point, promise), I never had to fail at those things and then try again. Then fail... and then try again. And then fail and try once again. I put in the hard work and they worked out. The first time. Possibly the second. Mostly the first. In August, I was woefully unprepared for what it felt like to fail and come back with the same amount of dedication and focus. I thought relentless pursuit was defined by intensity. I see now that it is defined by redundancy.
Practically, I know that having people help me through effective coaching and practical feedback has been the game-changer in my teaching career. The fact is, relentless pursuit alone would not have made me an effective teacher back in September. But I think it's worth noting that I had to have a major mindset change about what it would take to be a good (not even great teacher) for kids who desperately need people in their classrooms every day who not only care deeply about them but have the ability to give them the very beginnings of equal opportunities in this country. Yeah, it takes intensity and passion and all those other things. But I had to learn to shoulder my feelings about struggling. to shoulder my complaints about the lack of support and poor training, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. It was new for me. It still is. But as the adult in the room, the one who had access to an amazing educational experience and the right combination of dedication and empathy to want this job - I have to, daily, get over myself and relentlessly pursue what it takes to be life-changing for kids.
Here's to five more weeks.
with love,
Shelli
