6/5/07
Interview day - Newcomb Middle and High school, right next to the elementary school, chapter house (of the Navajo nation - for tribal election and meetings), and a senior center.
The principal asked questions from a list that I could not discern how well i was doing: How would you teach creativity, responsibility, and critical thinking in your classroom? How would demonstrate discipline in your classroom? It was a tough interview, more so than some of the others I feel. He even took us two potential science teachers around teh school. Both middle and high schools were fairly new, less than 10 years old, with new astroturfs, desks, and computers. However, the principal lamented that the school has yet to achieve AYP (adequate yearly progress that stemmed from the No Child Left Behind legislations). What's happening right now across the country is that many corporates are buying out failing schools, rewriting its curriculums in order to raise the standard scores. This is true for Newcomb as well, it is bought over by America's Choice, which is supposed to "bring us the light".
In the afternoon, we had a presentation from one of our university partner, Western New Mexico University. Although I'm not sure if I will participate in their licensure program (first year teachers are required by law to go through courses in order to obtain a level IA license to teach across U.S.), one thing I was struck on was that they mentioned how people do come and go in this region, students are very much used to the idea of ephemeral presence. That's pretty powerful, and the thought in my head for a long time.
I couldn't get a handle on how i did during the interview, but during dinner at the Gallup's local Coal Street Pub, I found out that the Principal in fact did like me in the interview, and I am 99% hired (1% due to a more complicated hiring process) as the new 7th-8th grade science teacher at Newcomb Middle school. Ten feet away from there, two other Teach for America corps members are hired as a special education (for gifted students) and high school language arts teachers. Since we are on the reservation, we'll be sharing a room together on teacherages, which are trailer housings for teachers. Hopefully we'll be able to adopt stray dogs since they'll be common around the area.
After dinner, we watched an amazingly choreographed Native American dance in the square outside the town courthouse. Each dance, whether it was the weave or hoop dance, had a specific explanation that went along with it. It was so impressive...
I felt really lucky that night, because I didn't have to go through so many days of interviewing, stress and anxiety.
6/6/07
More presentation, but this time, University of New Mexico included a Navajo introduction greeting of the "Beauty Way" song, that I thought I wanted to hear more. The professor who performed the song emphasized the role of teachers to introduce "a world of unknown to a world that is unknown to everyone" and what education truly means in the Native American community. Perhaps this will be my university for the next two years, if not three?
After that presentation, we headed off to Rocky View Elementary School for some community service, laying down weed stoppers and then gravel to re-landscape the weed laden front yard. Today was so windy that pebbles and gravel constantly were blown across the ground, hitting our shoulders, backs, and legs, each resulting in some paintful resonances. Apparently, the wind went up to 69 miles/hour, crazy! but normal weather for NM it appears. I still felt that it was the most fun I've had this entire time.
The afternoon went by like a blur. Dinner at Salsa: the entire restaurant was closed for our purpose. The state question of New Mexico is "Red or Green?" which meant do you want red or green chili, personally, I prefer the green, but you can also mix, and it is then called "Christmas".
Karaoke tonight was insane, more fun then "Vocals" I'd say because everyone was really into it. We definitely discovered some bad singers. One previous corps member commented that we were "well-received by the community", I question it: really?
6/7/07
More presentation, last one with Santa Fe Community College - I spent the rest of the day weighing my options - between SFCC and UNM. Another option of Transition to Teaching Grant came up, which would potentially pay for all cost of the licensure program (i.e. the university or community college courses), however, it requires a 3-year committment to teaching at the same school I am placed at. I thought hard and long about it and talked about several times with my program director, and decided that a 2-year committment MAY in fact very well turn into a 3-year committment. Such an important and serious life decision, and I feel I have so little time to decide about it (approximately 3 months!). What astounds me is that a year ago, I would have never thought I would be a teacher, and now I'm contemplating on a third year in a place I am just getting to know. This is one of the core values that we have seen - upholding a sense of possibility - I do like the idea of options. The grant is for a 3-year committment, but if you don't finish the 3rd year, you can pay back that one year of payment, which is a cheap way of getting courses paid by the state. I don't want to burden the grant with such a decision because if I want to committ to something, I do want to think hard about it, especially when it is such a short amount of time.
We then moved to the JFK middle school to observe some schools, I won't go into the technics here, but getting a sense of the students age-group made me feel slightly more comfortable about teaching at the middle school. The school was made simply of a group of trailers that composed of classrooms. It was so different from the other schools that we have seen so far. It was such a different sense of communtiy especially from where I'll be, a more isolated and new school environment with new turfs.
The dinner at El Rancho Kitchen was a lot of fun, getting to know other corps members from our year or last year, Definitely some crazy laughing - finally, after 4 days, people's personality are gradually revealing themselves, hearty laughing, blatant joking, and discrete comments. We are getting a sense of who everyone is now, people we'll be spending a lot of time with for the next two years, if not three.
6/8/07
The last day of our induction. In the morning, we had some review of our core values as a corps, the panel on summer Houston Insitute was perhaps the most helpful throughout the last 4 days in terms of knwoing what life will be like down there all summer. We started off on the road shortly after lunch, caravan-style. A night of long-driving, but we finally stopped at Fort Stockton at 2 in the morning, 6 girls crowded in a miniature room, and were still able to get through the night.
6/9/07
Arrived in Austin through a series of adventures, passing through Fredrickburg Texas. More to come!
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