Begin Week 2: CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.

Dear Loyal Listeners,

Sorry these blog posts aren't funny yet. Turns out there's a lot of serious business when you're in the position of getting 9 almost-second-graders ready to enter second grade when some of them are still doing reading and math at a pre-primary level. It's a huge job, actually. It's unbelievably daunting. 9 students, 3 adults, 1 month to conquer this b-word called the achievement gap. NOT COOL, EDUCATION SYSTEM.

But in the meantime, when we're not working on lesson planning, building classroom culture, learning how to teach (it's good review for me, it really is), practicing behavior management (explicit directions, narrate behaviors "Kenderrius is showing me he's ready to go by having his hands in his pockets and his voice turned off, Lisbeth has her hands in her pockets and is facing forward, I see that X'Zavier is showing me he's ready to go by having his hands in his pockets and his body facing forward...," and corrective feedback "Kieveon, I need your eyes on me and your voice to be turned off as we're walking in the hallways..."), and making posters and visuals and manipulatives (I just spent almost an hour making cut outs of pictures of my brother age 1-18 to teach about breaking down teen numbers tomorrow).....we are actually having some fun! REALLY!

On Friday night we had "Catfish on the Quad" (don't worry, veggie options were available) with all of the people staying at Delta State over the summer. There was music, unlimited beer (that's right gusties, FREE UNLIMITED BEER, now everybody send in a comment card to the dean of students at good old GAC and tell them how they do it in Mississippi..), hotties driving golf carts (and my future colleague happens to be fearless when it comes to asking for more beer and rides..), and good people. It was a great way to start my first weekend here!

The three of us in the  picture above will be teaching together at Sanders Elementary School in Hollandale, MS for the next two years! (Kasondra, Katie, ME)

So we go to the beer table thinking we'll grab a couple more for our friends who are saving our seats...;)....but this little lady in the red dress (again, fearless, not like me AT ALL) thinks its funny to say "Excuse me sir, can she actually have four more beers? Oh, I'll take for more too if that's alright, please" in the most genuine way...and eventually we're each carrying six beers back to the table to "share with friends." We got lots of looks. I gave lots of winks. Because I think I'm hilarious.

So, then, SATURDAY, we had quite the agenda as well.

Katie and I laid out and tanned for an hour (it worked, I'm burnt). Then I did some lesson planning and napped (I AM JUST PLAIN POOPED) and then we went to the beautiful town of Winstonville for a community barbeque hosted by the mayor just for Mississippi TFA members!

On our drive there, we saw almost every field being burned like this. Quite the sight.

Winstonville Firetrucks turned Vintage (dangerous) ART,

Rides on the merry-go-round.

Winstonville, Mississippi. Population: 600. Cops? No. Says Larry, age 50, "We just take care of things by ourselves around here."

More merry-go-rounds.

Classy ladies on the seesaws.

WAAHOOOO

BEAUTIFUL. (photo cred: Katie)

SUNDAY=WORK WORK WORK ALL DAY and a nice lunch with a fellow gustie grad who's down here in the Delta. :)

MONDAY(today): First full day of teaching with the kiddos. They're great. We did pre-assessments and got to know the kids and I just can't wait for the next four weeks with them.

Tonight I decided to go to the meeting of this singer/songwriter club of TFA members who meet every week. Basically some people came with guitars, we sat around a piano and we just jammed for an hour and a half. It was beautiful and was EXACTLY what I needed in the midst of all of this chaos and stress.

And now it's 10pm and I've written 0/3 lesson plans that are due tomorrow.