Third confession: I got myself the (preferable) Los Angeles, California Institute assignment (rather than the alternate Phoenix, Arizona Institute assignment) by insisting that I couldn't pull my son out of school early, and then proceeded to pull him out of school early anyway.
Back in 2013, when I joined the corps, those assigned to the Las Vegas Valley were given two options regarding where they'd attend Institute (Teach For America's 5-week training program): Phoenix (where the majority of Las Vegas corps members went), and Los Angeles (where a very few Las Vegas corps members went). Most corps members who attended Institute in Los Angeles had been placed in California -- either in Los Angeles, San Diego, or the Bay Area -- but some Las Vegas corps members managed to get there, too, through extenuating circumstances. The Phoenix Institute, you see, began in May, which meant that if a corps member hadn't graduated college yet (yes, this was a thing) or had family commitments, they'd have to attend Institute in Los Angeles instead, which began in June. Personally, I knew that I'd rather be in Los Angeles than in Phoenix, and, lo and behold, I had an excuse to do so: my third grader wouldn't be finished with school until after Institute in Phoenix had already begun.
I was very adamant about this. I could not pull my son out of school before the year ended. I was about to uproot him to not only a new school, but a whole new state, and so the least I could do for him was make sure that he got to finish out the year. This was, of course, a good enough reason to allow me to attend Institute in Los Angeles.
So, as I said, I pulled my son out of school early anyway.
The reason I left earlier than planned was so that I could make it to Induction (a week-long introduction to Teach For America and my placement city). This event was to be held in downtown Las Vegas, and I would share a hotel room with another new corps member, despite the fact that I had family in town that I could have stayed with. For this venture, I packed up essentials for my son and I and we drove down to Las Vegas. The plan, at the time, was to attend Induction, find a new place to live, and then go back to the Bay Area after Induction to finish packing and moving. There was, therefore, quite a bit happening in a short span of time, but that didn't stop me from entering Induction bright-eyed and smiling.
Yes, my smile usually masked carefully hidden anxiety about the move and my new job, but I continually told myself to relax -- after all, I was in Teach For America now. I'd learn everything there was to know about being an effective, life-changing teacher within the next few months, and everything in my life would be a-okay. After all, Teach For America wouldn't send me into a classroom full of students unless I was wholly prepared to take on the role of their teacher, right? (My inner pep talks didn't sound quite this unjaded, but they may as well have.)
Upon arriving in Las Vegas, I dropped my son, my two cats, and some of my other belongings, off with my mom and sister (who'd agreed to babysit my little family through the Induction and Institute process), who then drove me down to the hotel where I'd attend Induction. I don't actually remember what I expected Induction to be like, but most of it consisted of equal parts "TFA triablism" (as I call it), where we would learn about the importance and influence of TFA in education (complete with high-energy music and well-placed motivational speaking), and team building activities that were supposed to simultaneously build us up as an elite corps and make us ponder our privileged place in the world of educational inequity.
We heard from "guest speakers" -- young students who, though their TFA teachers, had reached new heights and were there to tell us what an important role we were about to play. We were told that, out of roughly 60,000 applicants, we were among the lucky (and talented, we were told) 5,000 to be chosen to join the corps. We stared at (and pretended to analyze) educational data from our region. We played games that assigned our personalities to shapes (I'm a triangle, if you're interested) and asked us to draw our life stories on a single sheet of white paper. We attempted to build marshmallow-holding towers out of dry spaghetti.
Oh, and during this process I also found out what grade level I'd be teaching, and at what school. This was a huge deal, as I'd spent most of Induction feeling envious of the young twenty-somethings who had been assigned to teach middle or high school English, many of whom had majored in business or accounting or something else that had nothing to do with literature or English. Why, I continually asked myself. Why did these kids get to teach English when I, as someone who had majored in and actually taught English before, did not? (Spoiler alert -- that was a question that was never actually answered, though I suspect that other corps members may have been more vocal about their preferences for older students than I was.)
Being assigned my grade level, however, transformed that sting into a mere throb. Once I arrived in Las Vegas, I needed to apply to the district and specify grade level preferences. (The Clark County School District, at least in 2013, was so desperate for teachers that they actually did listen to us as to where we wanted to be placed -- they needed each and every one of us.) As disappointed as I was at being assigned to teach elementary school, I made sure that I marked 5th grade as my highest preference (as 5th grade was the highest elementary grade in CCSD). As I had to choose two other grade levels as second and third preferences, I chose 4th and, lastly, 3rd.
I heaved a huge sigh of relief when I found out that I would be teaching 5th grade in the fall. I'd actually been assigned my number one preference. And it was no small thing -- I didn't get to teach high school English, but at least I wasn't teaching Kindergarten. (And let me point out here that I mean no disrespect to Kindergarten teachers, or any primary teacher for that matter. I know -- believe me, do I know -- how important your work is, and how much you do. I don't, personally, communicate well with very small children, and knew that such an assignment would be an uphill battle for me. My experience was in teaching young adults, and for the sake of my own comfort, I wanted to be as close to that as possible.)
I also met Amy (not her real name), who would be teaching 4th grade at the same school I would be teaching at, as well as my future MTLD, Christy (also not her real name). (For inquiring minds, MTLD stands for Manager of Teacher Leadership Development, which means that Christy was, essentially, my TFA "boss," responsible for my test data growth and development as a teacher while I was with TFA.)
Honestly, though, my biggest concern was understanding curriculum expectations for my region, and, specifically, my school. What, exactly, was I supposed to teach, and how was I to teach it? Further, what were the Common Core State Standards, and how did the state expect them to be implemented? Here I was, three months from acquiring my own classroom, with virtually no clue as to any of the above. As Induction neared its end, however, I repeated what I'd continually told myself since accepting my offer with TFA: Institute would teach me everything I needed to know about teaching, and my current anxieties were unfounded. After all, literally every single corps member story we'd been introduced to while at Induction had been inspiring success stories woven with the fabric of blood, sweat, and high expectations. Surely, that would be me, too.
Surely.
Induction ended with a visit from UNLV representatives -- that is, people from the education department at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, who wanted to answer any questions we had about the transition to not only teaching, but full-time graduate school. They introduced us to the master's classes we'd take while we were navigating our first year of teaching, the deadlines we had to meet, and the paperwork that needed to be completed before we took our next breaths. Yes, just in case I didn't mention it before, Teach For America corps members teach for two years while simultaneously earning a master of education degree in curriculum and instruction. (Remember that "grit" factor I mentioned before, that TFA looks for in candidates? That comes in handy when you're managing a full-time career and a full-time graduate student load at the same time. If you happen to have other commitments, such as single parenting and a chronic illness, like myself, this workload can get super fun.) As I'd already completed one graduate degree, though, I was certain that I could handle all of this with the grace and prowess of Athena on the hunt.
Despite my obvious foreshadowing of the less-than-super-fun future I was about to take on, I left Induction feeling inspired and "pumped." I felt not just ready, but distinctly ready for Institute in a week, and, eventually, my own classroom full of 5th graders. (I didn't actually feel ready at that point to take on a classroom full of 5th graders -- it's just that three months can feel like an eternity when a 5-week training session is still standing in the way.)
But before Institute, I had some time to relax. I spent much of this time with my sister, her children, and my mother, whom I had not seen much of in recent years. My sister, Holly, and I would stay out late drinking and bar hopping all over Vegas; later, I would still get up early with my mom and sip coffee on her porch while talking about life. My mom, a strict "carbatarian" (meaning that she ate nothing except for carbs and fat, no lie), began complaining of numbness in her legs, and so I started offering healthier foods, such as hummus and vegetable wraps, in place of her usual macaroni and cheese or rice drenched in salad dressing and cheese. We watched horror movies and the first season of the Bates Motel TV series (which she loved -- she told me she couldn't wait for the second season, due out in the spring).
As much as I wanted to continue to relax, however, the huge elephant in the room that I didn't want to address was the fact that I still had to move. In roughly one week of time, I still needed to pack up my apartment, move everything into storage, and find a new place to live almost 600 miles from where I'd begun.
I won't lie -- I hate moving. I despise it. This is probably because I've done it so often. Growing up, I moved all over the place -- northern and southern California, New Mexico, Nevada, Montreal, and Toronto (and, after I was grown, Washington state, Idaho, and Utah were added to that list). Moving is a huge pain the ass. But, with that being said, when you're used to the world being your home, it's difficult to establish roots anywhere, and I admittedly get an itch to move myself once I've been more than two years in a single place. But I digress.
Holly, my sister already residing in Las Vegas, agreed to help me pack up and move, so she drove with me back up to the Bay Area (a long road trip made fun by sisterly antics). We had the best of intentions upon arriving at my Bay Area apartment, and spent a shitload of money on boxes and tape. Somehow, we wound up devoting the evening to movie musicals (Les Miserables and The 10 Commandments the Musical, starring Val Kilmer as Moses, which is a real thing) and drinking wine. As we fell asleep, we vowed that the next day we'd get lots and lots of packing done.
So the next day, we drove into San Francisco and saw some good friends of mine and went to the beach. Again, we honestly had good intentions, but the second day of "packing" was about as productive as the first. When we returned from the city, we each packed a couple of boxes and called it a day.
Had it been left to the two of us, I don't know that any real progress would have been made, ever. But two people -- my good friend, Kathy, and other friend, Lora -- stepped in before I could crash and burn.
When Kathy came over to help, Holly and I assured her that we'd already done loads of work. Thus, I honestly should not have been surprised when she stepped inside the apartment, took a quick look around, and abruptly announced, "You need to hire movers."
So I did. Kathy knows things, and I wasn't about to contest that I needed professional help at that point. So, despite the fact that the movers I hired were teenagers who kept asking me for alcohol and a chance to sneak out and smoke pot on the porch, we did wind up with a moving truck full of boxes and my furniture, as well as an empty apartment. And my friend Lora, who had helped pack as well, stayed late to help clean. Honestly, she was still scrubbing the inside of the fridge when Holly and I were ready to collapse with exhaustion. Kathy drove the moving truck to a storage unit, the place where my things would reside until after Institute.
And Institute was right around the corner now. Holly and I drove back to Vegas and I began to prepare to endure the training session that I'd continually heard was nothing less than emotionally, physically, and mentally draining.
Deep down, I was ready -- I knew I could handle Institute. I'd been through a lot already. I could take their version of "intense," their rendition of "trying." I could.
I could.
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