A Complaint.

I need to start updating more frequently. At various points throughout my day, I will think to myself: "That would be something nice to share" or "I bet so-and-so would enjoy reading about that"...and then I run out of time to post. I have decided that I will attempt to post something -- anything -- on my blog each night. Or more realistically, every other night.

At this point I don't think anyone is really reading this -- so it'll be more so that I can look back at it later and smile (or cringe). After all, this is a journal of sorts.

Probably the most eventful thing that happened last week is that my kiddies and I took a field trip to the Baltimore Meyerhoff Symphony Hall. I was so overwhelmed by how well my students behaved (for the most part -- there was one fistfight, but that didn't happen until the end of the trip while we were on the way back to the buses). It was truly wonderful to be able to let down my guard a little on the bus and let the kids see that I am actually a pretty nice person.

It was a wake up call though. Probably my biggest reason for doing Teach For America was to provide a context for my future. I know that I want to work with education policy and whatnot...and teaching was supposed to provide me with some insight into what is actually wrong with the system that we have now. TFA has done what I hoped it would do...it has given me a lot of motivation to change things.

When we went on the field trip I could see how huge the disparity in education for children can be based on where they are born and what they are born into. The Meyerhoff had opened its doors to 900 children from various schools throughout Baltimore. I watched as the white, uniformed children were escorted through the front doors and into the front rows of the auditorium. Each child was accompanied by an adult chaperone -- one per every two children. Meanwhile, I had five students clinging to each arm and about four holding onto other parts of my body (legs and butt included) as we were escorted through the back door to the nosebleed sections.

It was incredible to see -- it was as if I was in a segregated courtroom in the 1930s...all the black children up in the mezzanine and a sea of white faces and blonde hair on the ground level. I started to tear up a little when one of my students reasoned that they had to sit on the hard wood chairs because they were black and had behavior problems. Outside, chaperones warned their children not to stare at my students as they passed us on the sidewalks (sadly, I'm not even exagerrating).

I wonder if the children in their schools have problems like ours...lead-filled water, children throwing bricks at each other and breaking each others arms, biting, screaming, naked men that wander through school halls...

P.S. Happy Halloween.