On Being Independent

Today I filled out a FAFSA form completely independent of my parents and their income. The joys of being independent. There is a much better chance that this teacher will now be able to receive student loans! Of course, to all bright sides, there is also a downside. I paid my first payment check to Loyola Marymount University. Sometimes being independent is not so exciting. For everyone who welcomed me to the "real world" after graduation, I thank them, and politely ask, can I go back? Responsibility and the weight of adulthood are not cooperating with me.

The first payment check was compliments of my big decision of the week. I'm going for the Masters of Education. At first, I thought I would just get my teaching credential, but I figured I could not be fully committed to this program if I didn't get a M.A. The degree leaves the door open for me in case I want to continue in the education field. (No, I haven't given up my dream about working with South Asian economic development... I'm just on a series of two-year plans). I filled out a lot of forms today. Few things are more exciting than filling out a complete form and transferring it from the to-be-completed pile to the completed pile. I've heard that TFA members are a little OCD.

I remember feeling horrible a few weeks ago the moment I realized I was taking my last undergraduate class. Luckily, it was an epic last class so I didn't feel cheated of a momentous occasion. Now, I'm super happy (and feeling a little silly) that I am again going to take classes starting in August. I am worried that teaching and taking classes will be overwhelming, but I've already described my unhealthy plan to have a love-affair with coffee. Get ready for our public displays of affection.

So I am an adult now. You can congratulate me later - as I will to all my fellow real worlders. Let's throw a big party in April (one, for having survived almost a year of teaching, and two, for embarking on our first independent income tax returns)!

Induction: Bulleted and Survived

My training to be a teacher started on Friday, June 22. Tomorrow marks one week at Loyola Marymount University, where myself and 209 other LA corps members have participated in induction. I have not yet entered a classroom so my story has not yet begun. Mostly though, because I didn't start this blog earlier, I'm too overwhelmed to recap the most crazy week of my life. I resort to bullet points (because obviously, I have not had enough bullet-pointed powerpoint presentations in the last week... seriously, omg!):

• I interviewed with four people from Miguel Contreras High School, a school located right in the middle of downtown LA. I had my most conservative navy blue skirt suit on, my humidified hair struggled to remain cooperative in a half-ponytail (honestly, being too close to the Pacific Ocean means constant bad hair days), and I was wearing pantie-hose. Enough said. Pantie-hose means business. As soon as they told me about the school, I wanted the job. At this school, the teachers work collaboratively with one goal: get the students to college. All teachers are required to mentor 25 students and engage them in an after-school program. (I really hope to start a creative-writing workshop! or a financial literacy class!) I spent 45 minutes convincing them that I was passionate and young and that, despite my inexperience, my "Miss Goswamy stare" would be the secret weapon of classroom management. They took a risk and hired me. Afterwards, telling my parents and family, they finally revealed that they were praying that I didn't get a South-Central placement. Apparently my aunt was having nightmares about my living in Watts.
  
• I've teared up three times already this week. I thought my college graduation would be the end of my overly-emotional episodes, but I seem to be prone to crying when I am severely lacking sleep and when people use Big Ideas - like being a change agent and social justice. The latest example being tonight. Steve Zimmer (a '91 LA corps member) talked about his fifteen years working at Marshall High School. He's been to 15 of his students' high school graduations . . . and 21 of his students' funerals. He hopes that one day, he'll have gone to more graduations than funerals.
• I am having trouble finding "me" time. The whole balancing life and teaching seems too impossible right now. And I haven't even started Institute (the five weeks of hell that start on Sunday). My one solution that I don't think is sustainable or healthy is coffee. Coffee gets me through the teaching part and leaves me less crabby during the life part.
• I think I need a whole post on this subject, but because I'm tired and borderline crabby right now, I don't think I can fully summarize my love-hate relationship with Los Angeles. It's no Bay Area to be sure, but it has charms and sometimes it's beauty overwhelms me. Like when walking back from our evening sessions and the tall, skinny palm trees stand against the pink sky. And the pink slowly fades to purple and then midnight with the city lights dancing. Mostly though... Los Angeles scares me. Part of the goal of induction is to meet my fellow corps members and to meet this city that I'll be living in for the next two years or more. So far, I cannot call it "my city." Soon, perhaps.
  

Oh, and because I do not want to marginalize this to a bullet point... I think I'm going to be a good teacher. I've been inspired by every conversation I've had and every content session I've been to - okay, except maybe the bureaucratic teaching training session - and I think that if I haven't been disappointed yet (despite lack of sleep!), I'm going to make it. And with that, goodnight.

Welcome to the Movement

Hello, my name is Stuti Goswamy, and I am a 2007 Los Angeles Teach For America corps member. For the next two years, I'm going to teach 9th and 12th grade English at a LAUSD school in downtown LA. Over 95 percent of my students at Miguel Contreras Learning Complex are Latino. Less than half will graduate.

Before deciding to do this, I heard some negative things about Teach For America. One, how could I possibly enact positive change in only two years? And two, did I have the right motivations for joining TFA? If you'll excuse my self-indulgence, I would like to address both criticisms. First, I don't expect to stop trying to close the achievement gap after two years. Once you know about this problem, you never stop caring, and you never stop trying to close the gap. I might not teach in the classroom after two years, but I'll be working - in whatever profession and in whatever capacity - to erase educational inequality. America and the rest of the world face the same problem: the Haves and the Have-Nots engaging in battle every day. Some kids (and now I have to be self-critical... some kids like me) have had every educational opportunity - from encouraging parents, to good schools and, most importantly, to good teachers. Some kids get low expectations and lower opportunities. And these kids are almost always located in low-income communities. In the short run, I'm going to make sure that the almost two-hundred kids that I will have in the next two years will be held to the highest expectations. I'm promising them a good teacher. Second, I wouldn't dare question my motivations. I joined TFA because I was questioning America's motivations. I was angry. I was so certain that I was going to graduate college in order to fix the problems in the developing world. And then I looked closer and realized that my own country would continue to Talk Big and Rule Mighty without addressing our most ugly problem. Sure, we all know that poverty exists in America. But did you know that 1200 kids entered 9th grade in a school in Compton? That only 200 of those kids graduated in four years? That only 15 of them were going to college? I didn't until my senior year of college! How can we ignore this issue - and why is it so easy not to know about it? I am frustrated with myself for not knowing for so long. So I'm doing this, and I'm going to share my story along the way so that you, too, can know about the problem, and so that you, too, can believe that we can one day close the achievement gap. Erase the very great distinction between what it means to Have and what is absolutely destroys to Have-Not. Welcome to the movement.