Year two: End of week 3 - September 6th, 2014

Well I was asked to bring back my Teaching Chronicles Tumblr so guess I'm back to blogging!

The first three weeks at my new school have been absolutely crazy.  My new administration and coworkers are absolutely amazing and so incredibly supportive.  I had been told that the staff here is like a big family and its so refreshing to see that everyone really is so unified and focused on our students.  

As for my new students, they are amazing of course.  I love them to pieces already and have already become pretty close with a few of them.  But man they are SO chatty and it has started to become a major problem in 3 out of my 4 classes because they miss directions and important things which becomes incredibly frustrating.

This week was our first week of actual content.  They are beginning the chemistry unit and have learned about atoms and the periodic table so far.  South Carolina just adopted new science standards that are much more rigorous and organized way better than what we had.  However, since the details are still in a "working draft" stage and since the State exam is still based on the old standards, our district hasn't implemented the new ones yet.  BUT.. Ms. Dunne's class has :) The most major differences between the standards is that the new ones go more in depth.  For example, the old standards only required students to know that all matter is made of atoms. The new standards require students to be able to create model atoms, meaning they must also know atomic structure (protons, neutrons, electrons and such). What's cool about teaching this is that not only will their test questions seem simple to them (hopefully) but also the lessons should connect better because things are explained a little better. Plus TECHNICALLY these are currently high school chemistry lesson so I told my kids they are learning HS chem and they were really excited about that.  I guess I'm not really supposed to be going that deep because they won't be tested on it (and test scores have recently jumped to the top of most schools' priority list) but in addition to those other benefits, I worry that if I don't teach the new standards then issues will present themselves when my students get to high school science and their teacher assume they have already been taught it. 

According to this awesome teacher/teacher educator named Harry Wong, teachers go through 4 stages.  Fantasy, survival, mastery, impact.  The fantasy stage is easy to imagine.  "I'm going to change lives!" Teachers move from fantasy to survival mode when the reality and stress of teaching hits and you wind up giving a lot of textbook work and/or worksheets and just try to get through each day. (I'm sure we can all recall a teacher who never left this stage). First year teachers definitely go through the fantasy and survival stages but I definitely wasn't expecting it to hit me as hard my second year and it has definitely been exacerbated by being a part of Teach for America.  See, TFA really highlights awesome and effective teachers, especially second years--and they should! Not only that, but I've heard a million times how much easier second year is compared to first year--which it also is! But this definitely contributed to me starting off the school year in hyper-fantasy mode.  I set our classes Big Goal at 100% of my students passing their state exam at the end of the year. After all, what does it say to my students if I tell them not only am I okay with some of them failing, but that is our GOAL. We hit on this really hard the first two weeks and discussed the achievement gap between low-income and high-income students (and black and white students) and the importance of working as a community to make sure every student passes the exam because that is the only way my students can #closetheGAP in my classroom. "If even just one student fails, we haven't completely closed that gap!" Reality check: last year only 25% of them passed their science state test.  I know much of this is attributed to the fact that their was a significant language barrier between them and their Indian first-year science teacher (who left the school I believe because he couldn't keep his classroom under control).  But, these numbers still were a big slap in the face about how big our goal really is. The good side to this is it has put a big sense of urgency in me that will hopefully transfer to my students.  But, I worry that the stress of taking on such a big task and getting my students invested in their education will burn me out and put me in survival mode when my fantasies had me convinced that not what I'm a second year I will skip through that.  So here's to staying motivated and getting my kids motivated as well.  Welcome back Ms. Dunne.

Institute Day 22

WAHOOOOOO I'M OFFICIALLY HIRED !!!!  In just a couple of weeks I will officially be leading the 6th and 8th graders too success in their science education! I'm so very proud to say I will be teaching at Creek-Bridge Middle-High School in Marion, SC which is about 45 minutes from Florence and about 45 minutes from Myrtle Beach. I cannot wait!!

Also.... drumrolll... my school set our summer goal to have our kids reach 80% of their growth goal but the 6 students that remain in my class (2 are now exempt from completing summer school due to passing a test and 1 moved) ALL of them are above 90% and 5% have SURPASSED their COMPLETE goal! Meaning our classroom is currently  above the average TFA institute classroom in terms of growth in mathematics.  SO proud of my kids. Wahooooo!

4th Week of Institute!

Pretty good week!

I was teaching reading this week.  That was a little rough.  We finished up the end of Tales of a 4th Grade Nothing by Judy Bloom.  What a cute book! The kids really enjoyed it. 

Monday was terrrrrible.  The kids were all confused that I was teaching reading and not math and I had zero control over them.  But we got through it.  That seemed to be the consensus across all the 4th grade teachers that just switched to reading.. everyones classes were just out of control.  But we got through it!  I had my second interview with Creek-Bridge in Marion, SC. and it went great! I'm just waiting now to have my placement (hopefully) finalized but I'm pretty sure that's where I'm at!

Tuesday was mucccch better.  I also only had 6 students so theres that.  They weren't exactly on their best behavior butttt I felt like I had control so that was a much needed improvement.  After school was over we had a half day so we didn't have any lectures! Yay! Devin and I went to get pedicures and they were SO relaxing. I really needed that.  Though they were a little pricey so I don't think I'll have that luxury again until I actually start getting a paycheck.

Wednesday was great! I only had 4 kids so we got a decent amount done and behavior was pretty standard.  They gave us a surprise half day! Everyone went nuts when they announced that because we're all just ready for this to be over.  Went home and napped forever.  After nap we all went to the 4th of July celebration (since the actual 4th is a school day).  They had pulled pork BBQ, ice cream sandwiches, live music and $1 beers/wine coolers. My first two beers were free because the mayor dropped $100 and bought a bunch of people beers.  That was awesome! Once it got dark they did a great firework show for us! I wasn't expecting it to be as good as it was.  A bunch of people went out after that but I stayed in with some people and we started watching Religulous.  Didn't finish it though because it was late and it was a lot of the same thing anyway.  Funny but very very biased. 

Thursday was a great day too.  We went back to Grenada Lake.  Pretty much the whole SC corps was there so that was fun. Afterwards we went to the same BBQ restaurant we went to last time. 

Friday we only had one student! We still had to do our lessons with her though so she got 1 on 1 instruction the whole day.  Afterwards was our community park day so a bunch of teachers went to a park for an hour and a half and played with the kids that came.  3 of our kids were there. The girls did a hair styling contest with me and two other teachers which was entertaining. Afterwards I took a nap and went to this bar called the Pickeled Okra with a bunch of people.  We had a great time! Drinks were ridiculously overpriced though.  $8 for a mixed drink! In Mississippi! Where the alcohol they put in the mixed drink only cost $8 max for the entire bottle... come on now. But I guess we've been getting cheap drinks the whole time so whatever.  Afterwards we hung out in the lounge in the dorms and my advisor and our friend Nate in North Carolina corps played guitar together so we just hung out and listened to them play.

Saturday was boring.  Hung out in bed the entire day and caught up on my shows.  Night time was great though.  Everyone went all out since it was our last night.  We took the free limo ride to On The Rocks. Great time.

Sunday I spend the whole day in bed again yay!

One more week!!! Can't wait to be home :)

Hanging out in class!

Think of something you aren't good at. Now imagine doing that publicly in front of all your peers who can do it fine. Imagine that you have to do this for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 9 months of the year for 13+ years of your life. That is how many kids with special education needs feel every day.

Institute Curriculum Specialist

Institute Days 12-15 and Weekend

This last week of school wasn't too bad.  Had a couple of good days and a couple of days where my classroom management was definitely lacking.  This upcoming week I will be switching from teaching math to teaching literacy so I'm really nervous about that adjustment and writing those lesson plans has been really hectic since I am not at all an english person.   We're reading Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Bloom which is a really cute book that I hadn't read until now.  Its about a 9-year-old boy and his 3-year-old brother who is always getting into trouble and always gets all the attention.  We'll see how it goes I guess! This upcoming week is pretty laid back so thats good.  We have a "half day" on Tuesday which means when school lets out at 1 we're done for the day also.  We have off on Thursday for 4th of july also so thats good! Then for the last week I switch back to math so I only have 4 literacy lessons and then one math lesson, 2 math review lessons, a day of testing and the last day we celebrate with the kids.  Almost done!!!

Friday was really hectic.  I did not have a handle on the class in the slightest.  I put my lesson on hold and spent 20 minutes having the kids say nice things to each other because the only things they were saying were mean things to each other and that isn't the type of classroom community we envisioned.  I ended up having to send a child to the office for the first time.  But, from then on my kids I guess realized I was serious and we're MUCH better behaved.  One child was crying the whole lesson because another child supposedly (I didn't hear it) said her mom was gay.  I was hoping I wouldn't have to have the "gay and retarded" words talk since my kids are so young but I ended up having to bring it up since it was right there. Some of the kids were shocked when I wrote GAY really big on the board.  I basically told them that I have friends and family members who are gay and mentally disabled and they have schoolmates who are gay and mentally disabled and it is disrespectful to those children to use those words as an insult because it is not their fault and they shouldn't be put down because of it.  One of my collab members was a little shocked by how I approached it but I want my classroom to be a safe place for all children and whether we're in Mississippi or The Village, my students will know that if they identify as part of the LGBT community they will be safe in my care.  I woke up saturday morning with two missed calls from one parent.  I was really nervous that I was about to get yelled at for telling her child that it's okay to be gay.  But I called back and it just rang through to a bizarre message about something with the number I have no idea --- scratch that, my phone literally just rang with the same number, my heart stopped for a second.  It was one of my students saying that she passed the state exam which means she doesn't have to continue summer school so she wanted to call and say goodbye.  So sad because I love her!! But so proud of her for doing well.  So now we're down to 8 kids.

I've finally got some good news about my future placement! I was invited for a second interview with Creek-Bridge Middle-High school for a position teaching 6th and 8th grade general science.  Really excited! Marion is a small town halfway between Florence and Myrtle Beach (about 45 minutes to each). The town said they are frequently referred to as "that pretty little town on the way to the beach" so thats exciting! I originally didn't want middle school but after thinking about it a lot there are definitely some awesome things about middle school, especially 8th graders -- I can really make sure they're prepared for high school and really implant in their head that college is an option and to start planning for that option to be a reality.  If I was to do high school, it might feel like its too late for some kids to have that chance.  So my second interview is via Skype and its tomorrow at 6pm (7pm NY time). So hopefully I may have some concrete news within the next couple of days? Fingers crossed!

13 days until NY! Missing everyone so much<3

Institute Days 9, 10, Weekend & 11

Well I promised myself I wouldn't get this far behind on the blog but unfortunately I've been incredibly busy.  To be honest, I already can't remember what happened on Thursday... it feels like that was forever ago.  I know we began doing Academic Intervention Time for real. So let me explain what that means.  AIT is the last hour of the day.   The first three days of school we spent AIT doing classroom culture and personal growth related activities (remember that lesson on smart/dumb/mistakes that I wrote about earlier? This is when that happened) But unfortunately theres too much work to get done to keep using this time for non-academic (or at least not directly academic) purposes.  So now what happens is the students are all split up into groups based on their achievement level.  In these small groups, more remedial time can be given to struggling students, while more advanced students can be pushed even further.  This is to ensure that all students are at grade level or above when they leave summer school.  The hour is broken down into a half hour of reading followed by a half hour of math.  This is where it starts to suck.  I hate reading.   I mean i love to read, but I do not at all one bit like teaching reading.  I feel like I have no clue what I'm doing. I picked out a funny chapter book for my kids to read.  Or its supposed to be funny anyway... I find it kind of dark... its called Joey Pigza Loses Control and it won a Newbery Honor Award so it should be good! I'm reading it only a little further ahead of them so I guess I will find out!

Lets see.... Friday... Friday was so wonderful just because it was Friday.  What a crazy week.  I still can't believe I've only been in the class for such a short time because it feels like forever and this weekend was definitely a much needed break.  After school we had a school social at one of the local bars where the teachers/staff were all invited to go for food and drinks.  We had fun! I left pretty early because I was just exhausted and needed to sleep.  The bar is called Hey Joes and has a really like trendy feel.  They only serve beer and have a pretty solid menu of food. Overall, cool place.

Saturday I got to sleep in (yay!) and then like 20 people from my corps drove out to Lake Grenada to lay on the "beach" and go swimming.  We had a blast.  It was so relaxing to be outside all day and to be able to forget about lesson planning.  After that we went to a BBQ place and ordered super southern food.  We got fried pickles, fried peppers, fried frogs legs, wings and Devin and I split a giiiiant plate of BBQ ribs, chicken and pulled pork.  We finished MAYBE half of it... didn't even touch the ribs. We were totally not expecting that much food.  The frogs legs were really good, but I couldn't seem to get passed the fact that they were frogs legs... contrary to what 7-year-old Deanna will tell you, frogs legs DO, in fact, taste similar to chicken.  They're more juicy and have a mild fishy flavor (not a strong one like 7-year-old Deanna would say). In general, I loved them.  But I don't think I'd make a habit of eating them because they make me feel gross because I love frogs. After dinner we went out to a more "clubby" bar called On The Rocks.  That was a blasttt and my legs are still sore.  Can't wait to go back this weekend!

Sunday was boring.  I slept a lot.  Boring is good (unless its a professional development sesh, then boring is bad)

Today (Monday), was a really hard day. Probably my worst so far.  We had two new students added to my class and that really threw me off because I only had one extra copy of my worksheets so I had to give away my teacher copy and I had nothing to follow along with.  I also just could not seem to get control of my class.  My patience was super low because of the stress of being placed (or not being place... aka I still don't have a job and have no idea where I'm moving in less than a month or with whom...).  Everyone keeps acting like the SC corps is so lucky because we have so many people placed already but like HELLO we're moving in a month.  EVERYONE should be placed! The rumors are going around like wild fire.  "If you don't get placed you'll be moved to a different corps, maybe across the country" "If you're not placed you'll be paid minimum wage and have to work as a permanent sub until you are" "I heard Orangeburg Country 3 terminated their partnership with TFA and everyone got their contracts pulled!" Of course, none of these are true according to the Placement Team, but it still sucks having no idea whats going on and only hearing crazy rumors and not concrete details from an administrator.  Especially when I'm 1 of like 20 people who haven't been placed yet (of a corps of 120).  So that really sucks because people are already picking house/apartment mates and stuff and I've literally been interviewing since March.  Oh well.  Guess I suck.  Lets blame it on my New York accent. Maybe I should push the southern one through a little more....

Institute Days 7 and 8: Institute Just Got Real

Yesterday was my first day of actually teaching.  Overall my day went pretty well.  My lesson, however, totally bombed.  Like actually bombed. Not "oh Deanna don't be so hard on yourself I'm sure it went fine!" But  some kids who got the question right before I even taught how to do it then didn't get it after my lesson.  I unlearned them.  I turned their knowledge into confusion.  And I still got another note from a student saying she loves me and from other students saying I'm smart.  Read further for details.  But of course I can't expect my first try to be perfect!

At the end of the day I did a lesson about never giving up and about exercising your "brain muscle" so it can "grow" and so you can get smarter.  I tied this into why it important to do homework.  (The following day, ALL my homework came back complete -- BOO YAH).  I also taught them that if a bully tells them they're stupid to sass them back with "there ain't no such thang."  We practiced this by me going around to my students as the bully and them giving me the sassy girl response back.  That was highly entertaining for both me and them.  Then I had them fill out a couple of questions after the lesson and one of the questions was "Who inspires you and why?"  I had three students (of 6) say that I inspired them because I am smart and nice.  One said I make her happy because I always smile at her and she thanked me for it! So cute.  I'm so overwhelmed by the love!  After school let out we had "Community Night" which was basically Open house but in the multipurpose room instead of the classrooms.  We only had one parent come (parent of the student who wrote me my first love note).  But it was more like having 1/3 of a parent because she had 6 kids (my 4th grader being the oldest) so we had to share her time with her 1st and 2nd graders teachers.  In the meantime all the teachers were holding the baby and chasing the toddler around as he drew on walls.  My shining star was so excited to have her teachers all to herself.  She played "I spy: sight words" with her reading teacher and later with me. She also did some homework with her reading teacher and she told us that she loves homework and wants us to give her more! She is so eager to learn and I'm so excited to see how much she does learn.

We didn't get home until 8pm and that was pretty rough to make sure I got all my work done at a reasonable time but somehow I did.  Many people stayed up till 3-4am or flat out pulled all-nighters.  Someone from my school already quit and so did someone from the high school.  But Ive been told this is the worst week....

Today was much better.  My lesson was much smoother and my behavioral management went better as well.  My students grew.... kind of.... well... they went from 14% mastery to like 35-ish% mastery sooo thats something?  Definitely an improvement from the negative "growth" of yesterday lmao.  Gave one of my students a reading test who was absent for testing and he tested on a 5th grade level! So proud.  We also had the students take pictures holding signs that say what they wanna be when they grow up for our bulletin board.  Can't wait to hang them up because they came out adorable!

Others in my school are struggling.  There's been multiple classroom fights, at least one every day.  Couple teachers crying -- both in front of and not in front of students.  We have a lot to process right now.  Our school is so poor they can't even afford basic things.  No paper for students to write on (students come with only pencils, if that) so that threw off my first lesson.  I don't even try to get soap from bathroom sinks cause there is none -- no paper towels either.  Bathroom stalls will be lucky to have toilet paper -- today we used tissues and napkins from our lunches and we had to ration them among students so they could use the bathroom.  Toilet paper that does exist sits on the floor because the holders are broken or non existant.  Many stalls aren't even working in the first place.  2/4 are usable in the bathroom across the hall and in the multipurpose only one of the two stalls has a door on it.  100% of students (and some community members) get free lunch and breakfast due to their financial situation and most students come from single parent households (or single grandparent) and have many siblings.  Every one of my kids has at least one younger sibling.  One student is one of 9.  It breaks my heart to see the struggles they go through, and it clearly has an affect on them.  Again, if anyone would like to make a donation to the school, please don't hesitate to contact me.  Even something as little as $5 can buy toilet paper for my class for a couple days...

Institute Days 5 and 6 (& weekend!)

Greetings from classroom 21! I'm currently in class proctoring the math assessment test. Woo!

Friday was the first day I got to meet a couple of my kids.  Out of the 10 in my class only 5 were here.  I only got to work with two of them though.  We administered the Diagnostic Reading Assessment to assess what reading level the kids are at so we can set an end of summer goal. One of my students (entering 4th grade) is at a 5th grade level! I'm so proud of her and can't wait to see what she will contribute to our classroom.  The day was a little hectic.  But overall it went well.  Afterwards we went back to Delta State for Catfish on the Quad.  (Fried catfish and free beer and live music).  It was great! We all had so much fun.  Went back to my room and crashed after that because I was exhausted from the week.

Saturday was glorious.  I spent basically the entire day in bed and catching up on my TV shows.  I decided this was completely fine as it was my first day with nothing to do in 2 weeks.  At night I went out with a group of people to a bar called the Pickled Okra (the Okra is the DSU mascot... weird I know).  That was entertaining.

Sunday was another work day.  My collab and I met up to work on a bunch of things that we had due on monday.  Afterwards I worked on my second lesson plan which I will be giving on Wednesday.  Doing that was already much smoother than my first so hopefully the rest will go just as easily!  I also got mexican food for dinner because the cafeteria food is absolutely terrible and I needed to eat something other than pizza and salad.

  Today's been great! Taught my first "lesson" which was really just me teaching our class chant and appropriate behavior for when they enter the classroom in the morning.  Later I proctored the math assessment.  My kids did better than expected on it which was encouraging.  They were all mostly on a similar level as well except one who was a little low and two who were pretty high.  One of my students also wrote me the most adorable letter telling me that she loves me and had fun with me today.  See facebook/instagram for a pic of it!

Institute Day 4

Today was another day of lectures.  I had a reallllly rough morning because I'm incredibly tired from only getting 5-6 hours of sleep every night so hopefully tonight I'll get around 7.  We we lectured on a lot of stuff on classroom management and culture so thats good since its a big thing new teachers really struggle with learning.  We got to go to our classrooms and decorate them and that was really exciting! But unfortunately we don't have too many supplies to decorate and we didn't have too much time either so we're not at all done yet.  But its a start! I will post pictures when we are done :)

Another day of basically no free time.  Got home, changed, ate dinner, began working on our Culture Of Achievement (basically classroom management) plan with my collaborative (teacher partners I share a class with). We only finished that around 8:30 pm so I hopped in the shower and got ready for bed and I got a half hour to myself and now its bedtime!

I'm meeting my kids tomorrow to give them diagnostic tests so we can see where they're at.  I can't wait! But I'm also freaking out because we have gotten a LOT of information in a very short time and I'm feeling really overwhelmed on what to do and when to do it. But overall its very exciting.

Love and miss you all so much, 4 more weeks!

Ms. Dunne

Institute Day 3

I'm dying.  Been up since 5am. Planning my first lesson and class vision non stop since then. Gotta wake up in 6 hours.  No time.  Falling asleepppppp

Institute Day 2

Well today was definitely the least interesting day so far in terms of things to write about.  Had to wake up at 530 for breakfast even though I didn't have to be at the lecture hall until 730 so I grabbed breakfast-to-go and my lunch (because we have to pick it up at breakfast). Was a little disappointed with the meager portion of breakfast -- a small yogurt, an orange, and a granola bar.  Apparently bagels aren't a thing in the south... Anyway, today we had lectures and structured work time from 7:30am until 5:30 this evening.  We learned more about our vision then began brainstorming for our vision.  Then, we learned about crafting each individual lesson vision, lesson assessment, and student exemplar (a fancy word for an answer key that shows work) and made a very rough draft of each of these for our first class lesson on monday yay! Mine was essentially a very beginner algebra problem without the letter (ex: 5 + 13 = ____ + 8, what number belongs in the blank).  It seems like it would be easy to teach such simple math but I found its actually a little challenging because I would typically explain in words they don't understand (i.e. "invert the operation", though they learn this in lesson two taught my my partner!) After this, we learned the very basic format for a lesson plan and watched a video of a teacher performing a lesson that employed each step of the 5-step lesson plan.  They gave us a lottt of resources so I feel much more comfortable and confident that lesson planning is something I can take on! Hopefully I won't be unpleasantly surprised.... but I probably will so l will prepare for it!  On that note, bought a beginner yoga kit (mat, block, strap, dvd) for only $25 that got pretty good reviews, so I'm pretty excited about that as a method for de-stressing.  I've also learned that it's hard to keep the college student super frugal mindset when I'm expected to act like a professional adult. But, alas, I have only $2000 to make it till my first paycheck in september-ish with car payments and soon rent to pay and an apartment to furnish.  Womp. So Ms. Dunne is now accepting life donations! I promise I will even put them towards materials for my classroom if you'd like ;)

Institute Day 1

Today I was given my school and grade assignment.  Bittersweet feeling to have been assigned to teach summer school to children entering 4th grade. Unfortunately I have the second earliest bus meaning I have to get breakfast at 5:30am and my bus leaves at 6:05 because my school is about an hour away.  Looks like I'll be taking lots of naps on the bus like I did in high school.  Upon arriving at our school we were broken down into our Corps Member Advisor (CMA) groups, which is a group of 9 Corps Members that all share the same Corps Member Advisor.  Mine is Tom and he is cool. He has a "Rage Hat" which is a neon yellow hat that says RAGE on it and if you get the hat you have to give it to someone the next day as a sign of gratitude and tell them what you are grateful for and they then have to do the same the following day so thats entertaining. We were also further broken down into our collaboratives which is me and two other girls who will be teaching the same classroom together.  We will each be teaching something different and then switching around throughout institute.  My first area is Math so that should be fun! At some point during the day the A/C in the school broke so it was incredibly hot in the classroom in the later half of the day.  Hopefully it will be fixed by Wednesday when we're back because its supposed to be 97 out tomorrow and Wednesday.  But anyway, we shared our "Stories of Self" in our collaboratives to get to know each other better.   Mine was about my experience with the Pappys. We then discussed how to establish a vision for our classroom that is both meaningful and lasting for our students and measurable goals that follow along with that vision.  We learned that we will be working together to form our vision this week before we meet our students so that we can form it free from any biases we may have to overcome.

After this we went over to the high school which was down the hall and had a Q&A with a panel consisting of the Mayor of the town, a parent of a student, a faculty member at the school, and the woman who is the improvement officer for the school.  They spoke about their hopes and dreams for their students and about their community.  I learned that my school used to be a "colored school" and was only integrated in the mid-late '70s.  The town, however, is still 83% black.  Then the Mayor, who is also the disciplinarian of the school, said something that really didn't sit right with us. Our school still practices corporal punishment.  I am shocked that this still exists and incredibly uncomfortable with it.  But, when I got home, the first thing I did was look up the legality of this and I was astounded to find that this is still legal in 19 states (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_corporal_punishment) I don't really know what to say about this other than that its horrible and I'm not about to get preachy so I'll just leave that up to y'all to ponder.

Anyway... after I came back and went to dinner I decided to go one of the community group meetings. I was originally planning on going to the Yoga/Meditation group but after seeing all the "In God We Trust" signs in the classrooms today I decided instead to go to the Atheism and Agnosticism Identity group.  Normally I avoid these groups like the plague because they tend to be filled with obnoxious atheists that I get enough of from the r/atheism posts on the front page of Reddit.  But, alas, I decided to go due to my many fears about my beliefs (or lack thereof) in the South. We discussed things such as teaching evolution in science classrooms, LGBTQ safe classrooms, and how to handle invitations to church and the fact that church is such a big part of the communities that we will be a part of and making sure we don't miss out on that.  There were a hefty 6 other corps members and 2 groups leaders (out of 1000 CMs not including staff at institute), but that was kind of what I was expecting.  The religious group down the hall was packed. Typical.  Anyway. Gotta be up early so Ms. Dunne out

Institute Day 0

Just moved in! What a crazy feeling... My roommate is Meighan and she is such a sweetheart.  We got really lucky and wound up with the handicap accessible dorm so our room is a lot bigger than the other dorms and we have a huge bathroom with a big shower as well! Only downside is the shower head is a giant 5'2" high so when I stand under it it rests on my head... awkward.  But, again since we have a handicap room, the shower head comes out of the holder and can be handheld so its really not a big deal at all.  The other downside is the hanger rod to hang my clothes on in my closet is also about 3' in the air so I can't put anything on the floor underneath my hanging shirts and one of my dresses is dragging a couple inches on the floor.  Oh well.  But the dorms are AMAZING! South Carolina corps also got lucky with the newest dorms which are conveniently located right next to the dining hall, gym (which I don't use anyway of course) and the busses that take us to our schools in the morning.  So that's cool.  And my new car is parked a whole 20 feet from the entrance to the dorm which is glorious.  

Anyway, after getting settled we had a welcome bbq outside which was really nice.  There were some sun showers but it wasn't bad at all.  They had three delta kids who had just graduated HS (one was off to Delta State University this coming fall!!) who did a routine with all these flips and stuff which was cool.  Then a couple people spoke. The woman in charge of institute spoke about the difference between truth and honesty. She said she would be being honest if she said she was from Louisiana and had been working with TFA for x amount of years but she would be being true if she said she was a privileged white girl who grew up outside of Nola and who came out as a gay woman at 25 in the south where it isn't accepted.  She spoke about how its important to share our truths with each other because thats what makes us who we are and it's important to be proud of what makes you you.  She then spoke about the kids of the delta and how they desperately need our love and encouragement.  Overall pretty powerful.  A couple other people spoke to us in a very informal manner. One was Garrick and he was this hilarious nerdy guy who's in charge of Marketing for TFA.  He spoke about humility and his first encounter with a student humbling him in the classroom.  Apparently he was trying to get through to the 5th grader about his behavior and the kid was smiling but not because he was reaching him but because he had a booger hanging out his nose. After this we did the "wobble" dance which was highly entertaining. We were encouraged to do it any time we feel down and need a pick me up. Then we were all given black shirts with a white box and a sharpie to write why we're here in one (or a couple) words.  Some people wrote "hope," some wrote "the future," some wrote "service." I went with Happiness because I truly want to provide my students with the tools they need to lift themselves and their families out of poverty so they can attain true happiness and peace of mind without being plagued with constant financial burden.  That is something everyone deserves.