I said I would be more diligent about updating this blog, but here I am a month later, finally posting something new. I guess you can say that it's an indication of how busy I've been.
Since my last blog, I started teaching, and now have almost 4 weeks of teaching (and my first parent open house) under my belt. My initial thoughts: I love my school, and students are great. Before going on though, I feel like I should properly introduce my school - the school where TFA has placed me for the next two years.
I'm currently teaching 7th grade math at YES Prep Southwest in the outskirts of Houston. Like all of TFA's schools, my school's student population is overwhelmingly low-income, first generation minority students. Statistically, these are the students who perform the poorest across the nation. However, my school is, in my opinion, perfect proof that these same students can and will succeed. YES Prep schools in Houston have sent 100% of their graduating seniors on to a 4 year university, and my school has been recognized by the state of Texas as exemplary. To qualify as exemplary, a school must have an average of 90% or above of students passing the state's standardized tests. As a charter school, my school has more flexibility to create an environment which fosters student achievement. Students, grades 6 through 12, go to school for 8 periods a day from 7:30 to 4:30, and get 2 periods of math and English a day. Pretty much everything at the school is designed to get the students college-ready. Also, the disciplinary system at my school is extremely strict, and because of it, students are generally well-behaved, which makes my job a lot easier. I actually get to teach, rather than get too bogged down on behavioral management (I hope I'm not jinxing that). The staff at my school is also almost exclusively a bunch of extremely driven, 20-somethings, many of whom have some sort of affiliation with TFA. It's been so refreshing being around a young, dynamic environment. At times, it has felt kind of daunting being around people who have been so successful. I catch myself wondering if I can live up to such high standards, but then I remember how lucky I am to have so many great resources around me, who can help me become the teacher that I want to be.
With that quick background on my school, I would say that the first few weeks have gone pretty well. The first week was all half-days - a week that the school calls pre-term. During this week, the focus was primarily culture building and going over rules and procedures. It was nice to have this week to get to know the students before having to drill them with math. Following pre-term, we jumped right into to teaching math. For those of you who don't remember what 7th grade math is, because I certainly didn't, it's essentially pre-algebra. My students have been learning about fractions/decimals/percents, how to convert back and forth between the three, how to divide fractions, how to divide decimals etc. One huge challenge ahead of me is that YES Prep expects students to be taking 9th grade algebra by 8th grade. This means that I have to cover 2 years of math in 1 year! Fortunately, I have been teaching alongside a 2nd year teacher, who has been so great in helping me figure out what exactly I need to teach. We have our own classes, but we're expected to plan together and teach the exact same material. So far, teaching "for real" has been so much less hectic than the institute training from earlier in the summer. I actually manage to sleep more than 4-5 hours a night!
I should also should share that in middle school, students travel around all day in homerooms. This is basically a group of 35 or so students who have the same schedule and go to all the same classes together. In the morning, they meet in their homeroom for a zero-period, and the homerooms are named after the teacher's alma matter. Thus, I have a Washington Huskies homeroom! My room is obnoxiously purple and gold. I think everyone back home would appreciate that fact. Plus, I combined my UW pride, with my classroom theme of "Baller Scholars." It's so corny, but so hilarious to call my students Mr. Tran's baller scholars. I feel like 7th graders are still at that age where they're not "too cool for school" yet, so they can still buy into the corny stuff I do. They're mostly still pretty innocent, just with some middle school attitude.
I'll close by sharing some quotes. I'm going to try to keep a log of these, because I hear some of the most hilarious/ridiculous things.
Me: When I was in college, I studied and lived in Italy for 4 months
Student: Oh, so do you speak Italian?
Me: Umm, kind of. I know a few words. But luckily, I took Spanish in high school, and that really helped. Spanish and Italian are really similar.
Student: Oh, so is Italian like Spanish with an accent?
Student: Mister, can I ask you a question?
Me: Sure
Student: Are you Asian?
High school student to another teacher during the 1st week: Who's that? Why is he out of uniform?
Teacher: That's not a student. That's Mr. Tran, the new 7th grade math teacher.
Student: Mr. Tran, how old are you? 30?
Me: No...You think I'm 30?
Student: Yea, like how old are your kids?
Student: Mr. Tran, is this what you do for the Washington Huskies? (Shows me the Texas Longhorns hand gesture)
Me: No, that's what people do for the Texas Longhorns. But at the University of Washington, we put our fingers together like this to make a "W"
Thinking to myself a moment later: Oh my god, I just taught my class a gang sign
Next day same student walk into class: Mr. Tran, I've been practice my Washington "W". *Throws up the Westside gang sign*
