reflections of a first year teacher

Just less than eight months ago, I stood outside the door of room C-16 at Kennedy Middle School watching as 25 sixth graders - some terrified at the thought of middle school and others already confident in their multi-colored Jordans - filed in to take their seats on the first day of school. 

corporate to classroom: an update

Greetings from Ms. McConnell in sunny Tulsa, Oklahoma!

It's been a really long time since I've ventured over to this space and gave y'all an update, and I apologize for that. To say that the last month has been crazy would be an understatement. Since May 7, I have:

• Finished up my job at General Mills (and trained my backfill)
• Moved out of my house in Minneapolis
• Moved onto my friends' couch for 2 weeks in Minneapolis
• Shipped all my earthly belongings to a Charlotte storage unit
• Made the 18+ hour drive from Minneapolis to Charlotte with my mom
• Said goodbye to the Twin Cities
• Spent a week in Charleston, SC, with my family & Alex
• Said good-bye to Alex for 6 weeks (He's in Spain!)
• Freaked out
• Moved out of my storage unit and into a great house in Charlotte with 2 amazing girls
• Had TFA induction at JCSU in Charlotte (made some great new friends!)
• Packed up enough clothes, toiletries, teacher supplies, bedding, a printer, etc, for 5 weeks in Tulsa, Oklahoma
• Driven to Tulsa, Oklahoma (with a pit stop in Nashville, TN, to see Sarah!)
• Moved into a dorm for the first time since freshman year at IU in 2006
• Found out I'll be teaching 8th grade math at Hale High School this summer
• Survived my first week of institute (think LONG 16-18 hour days, lots of classroom management, lesson planning, etc, being thrown at you, and spending all your time with people you've know for 2 weeks or less)
• Found out I'll be teaching THIRTY-SEVEN kids this summer
• Freaked out
• Decorated my classroom with my co-lab (team of 4 that rotates through teaching our class - 2 ELA teachers and 2 Math)
• Freaked out again
• Wrote lesson plans on decimals, rational numbers, linear equations, positive and negative slope, and solving one-step equations
• Discovered I'm more type A than I thought ... kind of love writing lesson plans
• Met the kiddos I'll be teaching for the summer (only 25 actually!) They're awesome.
• Discovered that educational inequity - the reason TFA exists - it's a real thing. And my kids have been the victims of it.
• Fell in love with the classroom already
• Taught my first lesson plan on Comparing and Ordering Decimals
• Had a kid tell me I made the material make sense to him for the first time (yay!)
• Completely didn't see a kid on his phone for 40 minutes yesterday morning
• Realized I've got a lot to learn
• Confirmed that this is exactly what I want to do with my life

Well, it's 5:54 am (I've been up since 5) and I have to wrap up a few things before I head to breakfast and then to Hale for school! I'm teaching on Comparing and Ordering Rational Numbers today - get excited!

I'll try to give a more detailed update on what this whole teaching thing is like. In short, though, I'm falling in love with it and have developed the utmost respect for the people who taught me and invested in me throughout my life. 

Happy Wednesday!

{corporate to classroom} every child needs a champion

My favorite quotes from this incredible talk by Rita Pierson, an educator for over 40 years whose energy and passion for what she does is so evident in how she speaks about her role in the classroom, her relationships with her students, and the commitment she has made to providing them an education and the confidence they need to succeed:

"I gave [my students] a saying to say: ‘I am somebody. I was somebody when I came. I'll be a better somebody when I leave. I am powerful, and I am strong. I deserve the education that I get here.’”

"You see, -18 sucks the life out of ya. +2 says, 'I ain't all bad.'"

“Teachers become great actors and great actresses. … We come to work when we don't feel like it, and we're listening to policy that doesn't make sense — and we teach anyway.”

{favorite things minneapolis}

In two short months, the last piles of Minneapolis snow will finally give in to the warming spring temperatures and begin their imminent melt into a perfectly splashable puddle on the walking path around Lake Calhoun. In two short months, Minneapolitans everywhere will have traded in North Faces and snow boots for t-shirts and Keen sandals, nights savoring a glass of red wine by the fire for evenings savoring local music groups by Lake Harriet, and winter comfort foods for fish tacos at Tin Fish. In two short months, professionals young and old will come home from a long day at the office and, instead of throwing on sweats and settling in with a sitcom on the couch, will round up friends and family for a walk around the nearest lake or dinner on a local terrace. In two short months, Minneapolis will emerge from its winter cocoon and begin the time of year that stole my heart almost three years and nudged me to call this city home.

{corporate to classroom} why teach for america??

I've had a lot of people ask me why I've chosen to part ways with General Mills to become a teacher. Fair. It's a good question. General Mills has been great to me, and I've loved my time both here and in Minneapolis. So why the big switch? I figured I'd help answer that question with an excerpt from the essay I wrote and submitted with my TFA application. I've included that below. But the reader's digest version of why I want to be a teacher is that I think it is a huge tragedy that children in this nation are served the great injustice of being denied a good education. Whether the future finds me teaching math, serving as a principal to an underserved school, or working with a non-profit to end educational inequity, I feel so strongly about the broken education system in America that I couldn't not join the fight to fix it.

The Longer Version:

  In September 2011, I walked through the front doors of a Minneapolis elementary school to meet Jennifer, the girl with whom I would be reading for an hour each month during my lunch break. Sixty minutes later, as I drove back to work for a one o’clock meeting, my mind reeled with questions and frustrations about the experience I’d just had. Despite being in third grade, Jennifer spent most of our time together struggling to sound out the words to a book meant for a child just learning to read. Thinking back to the Boxcar Children books I devoured when I was as young as seven years old, I couldn’t make sense of this spunky eight-year-old, with her gapped front teeth and Hello Kitty tee shirt, reading at barely a first grade level. It wasn’t right.

     I chose to join Teach for America because I want to be a part of the movement to close the achievement gap currently preventing children like Jennifer from reaching their potential and realizing their dreams.

     I spent the past year and a half working in a cubicle on the second floor of General Mills headquarters, far removed from the battle taking place in North Minneapolis schools to provide well-deserving yet underserved children with an education that will get them to and through college and give them a chance to succeed in the 21st century. It’s happening, though. I see these kids riding bikes down the streets as I staple shingles on the roof of a Habitat home, and I help fill their bellies on weeknights at a church after-school program. Every time, I think, “These kids deserve so much more than this.”

     But wishful thinking will not help Jennifer fulfill her dreams of becoming a nurse. Good teachers will. Teachers that are invested in the lives and futures of their students, that don’t see a child’s skin color or socioeconomic background as justification for illiteracy, and that truly believe educational inequities can be overcome – those are the teachers that can change the "forevers" of kids like Jennifer. I want to be one of those teachers.

     I’m not looking to put TFA on my resume; I’m looking to put kids in college. That is my ultimate goal in becoming a teacher – that every child who enters my classroom leaves with the knowledge, tools, and confidence to successfully pursue a higher education and a better life. My success would not be measured merely by test scores, though those are undoubtedly integral in helping my students progress. Test scores mean nothing, however, if I haven’t transformed each child’s attitude from one of resigned acceptance of the status quo to one where they all believe that they not only deserve to succeed but can and will.

     The education system in America is broken, and I am passionate about the work being done by TFA teachers to piece it back together, one child at a time. I can't wait to join them.