Sound It Out

Four months after Teach for America gave me a future (Thank you, God!), I have finally figured out how to set up my blog. Luckily for you, I’m just as bewildered now as I was in November, so you haven’t missed much. It’s incredible, crazy even, that this organization finds me qualified to stand in front of a classroom of tiny human beings and shape them into…well…big, mature, productive human beings. With countless family members currently in or retired from the teaching profession, most of them in lower-income school districts, I never really thought it would be me. Me?! A teacher?! I’m 22 years old, for pete’s sake! My mom is (for the purposes of this blog) 39 years old with years of experience, and even she still has problems reigning in her students and collaborating with parents. Throughout college, though, TFA somehow kept emerging at the top of my list.

Today, with the injustices in America’s education system becoming increasingly prevalent in my mind and the minds of society at large, it seems as if there is nothing more well-suited to my skills and interests. For your personal edification, these include:

children (check)
public speaking (check)
kicking butt and taking names (check)
social justice (check)
literature (check)
arts-and-crafts (check, and a bonus point if I teach kindergarten).

Teach for America is giving me an opportunity to make a real impact on the world and to join one of our nation’s most noble professions…all while building great relationships with corps members on the same walk of life. You can’t beat that!

With one Praxis exam down (Elementary Ed: Content Knowledge) and two to go, the reality of moving away from CU and into a real profession is setting in. Still, I can’t wait for my big move to the Delta. I can’t wait to eat some bbq, listen to some blues, and explore the river. I want to cry and pull my hair out and laugh hysterically and teach, teach, teach until my voice cracks, and I want it to come sooner. Just 5 months.

I built me a raft and she’s ready for floatin’. Ol’ Mississippi, she’s callin’ my name.