"... much will be expected."

So week one of teaching has come to an end... and I love it. I'm co-teaching a 9th grade Algebra class with 4 other TFA corps members (1 from Jacksonville corps, 1 from Detroit corps, 1 from St. Louis corps, myself and 1 other Chicago corps member) and enjoying it a lot - I can't even imagine the luxury of my own classroom for the entire school day with which to develop a culture and mold MINDS! It's one of the most exciting things about August for me. Though I know that shit will have officially hit the fan come August and that I will be tested and prodded and poked and annoyed and tired and irritated, I can't wait.

A little personal assessment for the first week of summer school teaching:
Strengths - lesson planning, teacher voice, command of classroom, relationship building
Areas for improvement - sticking to and enforcement of consequences, pacing of material

This experience has already been one of growth for me - it's very easy to blur the line between teacher and friend for me, because you want to be cool and understand the students, but your job is to make sure they know the information. Definitely an interesting balance that I am sure to struggle with over the next two years in TFA. It hit pretty hard today when we had to kick out one of our students for misbehavior - it turns out that the student had already taken Algebra two times and failed - once in school, once in summer school (removed for misbehavior), and now removed again for misbehavior. The tough part though, is that she has the potential for a soccer scholarship to a nearby university - AND she already has a 25 on her ACT (very uncommon in low-income schools - one school that we visited offered a free iPod touch as a gift for students scoring above 24, and most schools hover around an average of 16). Needless to say, it's hard to go without feeling some sort of personal responsibility for our student being removed from summer school and failing the course again. Honestly, we could have managed behavior better from the get-go, but it would have been a serious challenge for us as first-time teachers. I guess it just lends to a heightened sense of urgency for me during this program, because it is so important that I start developing that culture of achievement in my classroom from day 1. I'm so glad to have been able to get into this profession, because I think it's really my chance to give back - I was extremely blessed with an excellent education, and I intend to have other students not as fortunate or lucky take some of the paths that I myself chose. I'll leave you with a particularly striking quote that I happened upon today:

"To whom much is given, much will be expected."

There's nothing to it.

I want to be an architect. I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to get there, but I want to be an architect. I want to design buildings meant to be lived in. And I don't just mean like any old regular building. These buildings will be meant to be LIVED in. Really Living. Not the pretend stuff that we do most of the time. Real intentional living. Frank Lloyd Wright kind of shit. Not sure that I'll quite be on his level, but what is dreaming if you limit yourself. If you want to view paradise, Simply look around and view it. Anything you want to, do it, Want to change the world? There's nothing to it. Willy Wonka had a good point. Here goes nothin'.