It's Over

I know I haven’t really gotten to write too much about Intenstitute, at least the ins and outs of it, and hopefully some of that will come as I have time to continuously unwind from that pressure cooker. But now that FINALLY those five weeks are over, I can look back, and hopefully glean (Erin, that word’s for you) a few takeaways from the experience.
I went into Institute thinking it would be the toughest and most challenging thing I had ever done. Looking back on the experience a week after it ended, I can safely say that I think it was.
It wasn’t just the long hours, or the lack of sleep, or the intensity of it all; it was the fact that there was a lot actually riding on what I was doing. I was just going through training sessions and hours in the classroom for my own benefit; there were students who depended on me, for whom my failure was not an option at all, whose successes were directly linked to my successes or missteps as a teacher. I needed to succeed not just for myself, but for those students for whom success at the Agua Fria Ninth Grade Summer Success Program would mean, in the short-term, in some cases, promotion to high school, but hopefully in the long-term, and maybe this is just me reverting to John Lennon-esque “dreaming”, but better preparation for high school and, hopefully, beyond. Some of these kids had never thought about going to college before; some of them even considered dropping out literally as soon as they could. If I could invest and inspire at least a few of them to consider changing life paths, I think I did well.
So, on the balance, how did I do in the classroom? TFA is all about Big Goals (with appropriate, reverent capitalization); the Big Goal for everyone at Institute was that, in each of our classrooms, (Freudian note: I manage to type “classtooms” most of the time I try to write “classrooms”; interpret that how you will, but I think I just have clumsy fingers) each of our students would meet his or her Big Goal. Now, I know this is getting somewhat confusing, what with all the Big Goals running around, so I’ll attempt to explain: Each of our students had a Big Goal based on our pre-test; their Big Goals were based upon the results of the top quartile of last year’s Institute. Say, for example, you scored 50% mastery of objectives on the pre-test; your Big Goal for the post-test would be around a 76% mastery of objectives, or thereabouts. These are ambitious goals, all based upon what the cream of the crop of last year’s Corps was able to achieve with their students. So MY Big Goal was that ALL of my students would reach THEIR Big Goals. Make sense?
Sorry to get bogged down in the weeds of Big Goals, but that’s a lot of what TFA is all about. Throughout their lives, in many cases no one has believed that many of these kids could achieve to high levels, and we were there to break that mold, to set high standards, and to reach for them. So how did I do, going back to my original question? Well…alright. 4 of our 11 students met their Big Goals; not a great mark, but pretty much average for the Ninth Grade Summer Success Program. Overall, the class as a whole improved 11 points, from a 61% to a 72%, on the post-test; I think, for four weeks of teaching by novices, that’s awesome. On the pre-test, only 3 of 17 objectives were mastered by 80% or more of students; on the post-test, 9 of 17 objectives were mastered by more than 80% of the class, with 4 objectives reaching mastery by 100% of the students. Even though 100% of our kids didn’t meet 100% of their individual Big Goals, I think we did pretty damn well, considering.
Considering what? Well, although I certainly cared strongly about each of my students’ progress and achievement, and although I certainly know that all of them can achieve at a high level, I did not have the easiest class. It’s not like I had a ton of management problems; in fact, we had hardly any major management problems in J4. They were the SuperStars they were meant to be in that regard. But 6 – out of 11 – of my students were either students with special needs or English Language Learners. That’s an unheard-of level in a regular classroom, and that created an interesting dynamic in J4 – with no leading personalities, those facets of the class became dominant, and participation and processing were major struggles for us. Because there was no dominant personality to move the group, despite my best investment efforts, we had a very strange class dynamic, and the slower-processing typical of students with special needs and English Language Learners dominated the class instead.
My supervisors and mentors commented “Man, Peter, you’re not kidding – that’s a strange class.” When we took our “silly picture” at the end of the summer, only I did anything silly, and all I did was stick my tongue out. Everyone else is just standing there, awkwardly.
God I miss them.
I once made a joke, “Institute has made me a great dentist; I’m awesome at pulling teeth.” It was awkward, yes, and the timing was poor, but that kind of encapsulates how participation in my class was – getting them to talk was like pulling teeth from a toothless person. But I tried hard, I really did, and my energy level, in my opinion, was outstanding (that’s not, actually, just my opinion: one of my mentors commented that “Well, based on what I’ve seen you do, they SHOULD be participating and engaged – it’s an interesting dynamic”…yes, yes it was. And, most importantly, the kids noticed my energy too. On the last school meeting, we had a heart-wrenching slideshow of what our kids said about us. When prompted, my kids said their favorite thing about me was that I had a lot of energy – so I’m not really just making this up).
So yes, all things considered, I think I was able to do great things with my class.
Maybe the support was a little lacking at Institute for dealing with anomalous classes like mine, but that goes back to an important point: Institute has two major purposes, one of which, student achievement, I’ve just described in (hopefully not too boring) detail. The other is our own professional development; how can we Corps Members lead to student achievement if we don’t know at all what we’re doing?
In this regard, our individual Big Goals were to move from Novice to Beginning Proficiency on the Teaching as Leadership rubric – TFA’s teaching Bible. There are about forty-odd different facets of the TAL rubric (that’s another TFAcronym for ya); I did, indeed, move, with the incredibly support of all of the awesome mentors out here, to Beginning Proficiency in all aspects, and Advanced Proficiency in some.
What took the most work? Checking for understanding, which is the process of questioning during a lesson, is difficult. You have to ask the right questions, to the right students, and respond in the right ways to make sure your class is either on track, or, as frequently happens, is way off track and needs some more practice or guidance. It’s tough and there’s definitely an art to it. It’s difficult to know how to respond a way-off answer this a response that’s not “Umm, well that’s an interesting answer, Jimmy, but, yeah…you’re wrong” – you’ve got to finesse it to make sure Jimmy SEEMS right and then coach and correct him with guiding questions to get back on the right path…oh, it’s tough.
What were my standout strengths? I seem to have acquired a great classroom presence – teacher voice, teacher stare, the movement, the energy level, everything – and that, I think, is how a degree in international business can help a new teacher. Presentations, more presentations, and then some more presentations back at Carolina certainly helped in that regard.
So yes, I definitely developed professionally, and yes, my students definitely achieved. TFA achieved those two of its own Big Goals. BUT, there is another, important goal, one I discussed earlier.
You need to make friends at Institute too; in fact, it would be impossible to make it through this experience without a valuable and reliable support system. So the social aspect of Institute is huge, too, and I definitely have carved a niche for myself and made a ton of friends here, too.
So, that was Intenstitute, a week after it ended. Was it tough? Yes. Was it worth it? Hell yes, and I think my kids would agree. Going back to my original thoughts, was it the most challenging thing I had ever done? Yes. But I imagined it to be tougher – absolutely no sleep, no time for socialization, no chances to eat or sleep or work out or breathe. It came close, but I think I handled it well, established a routine that worked for me, and forged out support systems to get through it all.
It was definitely the most fun I would never like to repeat again.

peace and love from 30,000 feet above what i think is the lone star state,
pb

PS: Wow, this turned into a far longer post than expected. I guess that’s what five weeks of pent-up thoughts and reflections and data and exhaustion and Intenstitute will do to somebody.
And apologies for all of the data in this post; TFA is all about data, and it’s helpful to use data to reflect. Sorry if I bored y’all, but remember, this blog is about me doing some self-reflection, too!