Well, it's been a while since I last posted (shocking), since the CF walk I was accepted to Teach for America and asked to be in Nashville, my new home, in 3 weeks. Wait, what? Quit my job, pack up my life, do some pre-institute homework, take a teacher test, get finger printed and move across the country all in 3 weeks? Wow.
I did it. And I lived to tell about it.
So now is teacher prep time. A week and a day before the students arrive, and I can't believe what I've already seen. I taught summer school in Atlanta while I learned to lesson plan and manage behavior (or at least was taught how). I was shocked at the level of my 8th graders basic math skills--they saw a negative or a decimal and freaked out, they count on their fingers and have trouble with basic multiplication tables I learned in 3rd grade. This is why I am here. That is unacceptable--how did these kids get to 8th grade, and now high school, lacking such basic skills? I saw a disconnect between teachers and administrators, between school goals and student goals, and between students and their investment in school and achieving. I hope to keep writing, not only so that I remember my feelings, my first impressions, thoughts upon further reflection and ways I think might fix this, but also so that you, whoever you are, realize what an injustice is going on in our back yard. Yes, I know, melodramatic for AlyTalksALot, but it's true! So yes, my main cause is fighting CF, and I am still working hard to fight my own CF and raise money to fight it for everyone else, but now, I have a new crusade, and that is somehow, tackling the public education system, starting with Whites Creek High School in the Metro Nashville Public School district.
Here goes nothing
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