Dave's Teach For America Chronicles / Chapter One: Recruitment
During my summer breaks from college, I worked at a day care center in Burke, Virginia called Kiddie Country. It was a perfect job for an overgrown kid like me. Days consisted of epic hide-and-go-seek games, beating difficult Game Boy Advance levels, field trips all over the DC region, getting pushed into the swimming pool, singing, drawing, and other general elementary school stuff. Three other staff members made up our summer elementary team, who looked over about 31 kids. We didn't really teach per se, unless you count the time I taught them the moves to Nsync's Bye, Bye, Bye for their Parent Spring Program.
Enter the college job search, post-9/11 economy. I decided I wanted my job to consist of two things: 1) kids and 2) helping others. Naturally, teaching sprang to the front of my mind. It was in my third year of college when first I heard about Teach For America. Peace Corps always interested me, but TFA was part of Americorps, more like a domestic peace corps. An older friend who was in a few of my English classes had just been accepted. She was excited to be moving to California to teach. This sounds good, I thought. She was a smart, established person at UVA. She must know what she's doing.
My fourth year rolls around and there's a TFA information session held in the basement of our charity organization, Madison House. I remember being the first one to help myself to a drink and thinking first impressions, don't spill, don't spill as I poured Sprite from a two-liter bottle into a small paper cup. The info session was great; a UVA alum and DC corps member led the show and answered most of my first questions. I picked up an application and several info packets and felt that this job was right up my alley. A two year commitment meant I could move on if things didn't work out in the teaching world. A handful of friends were at the meeting too, which was comforting.
One day I walked into the Cavalier Daily newspaper offices and was given an assignment to draw a picture for an accompanying article about Teach For America. A UVA graduate had quit her job after just three weeks. Seven murders occurred outside her school during training, rats were thrown at new teachers, and school fires were common. You guessed it...this person who quit was my friend. Crap.
TFA continued to get some negative press, but I remained hopeful. I even drew an editorial cartoon about the situation. I browsed through the application over winter break and started thinking about my site assignment. TFA places corps members in 18 regions across the United States. On the application, you rank the sites and there's no guarantee that you will get your first choice (although most people get one of their top three). I wanted to stay close to home (Burke, Virginia), but I wanted to try something different than Washington, D.C. I had always liked Baltimore when we saw Orioles games, and the site brochure showed that the cost of living was considerably lower than most of the other regions. I thought strongly about New York and Atlanta, but I decided that a first-year teacher salary wouldn't allow me to save as much in those two cities. My final ranking was Baltimore, D.C., Atlanta, New York.
I found out through the mail about a month later that I had been accepted for an interview at UVA. Not only would I be interviewed, but I also had to plan a five-minute lesson to teach to the other applicants. Any subject, any grade, any style. I'll never forget the night before the interview. I was stressed out beyond all belief, still undecided about what to teach. My girlfriend Jasmine helped me decide on "Mr. Werner teaches second-graders how to draw a fish." She printed out the individual shapes that would together form a fish and let me borrow markers and construction paper. I tested it out on her, word-for-word, a few times. I was finally ready.
I only semi-recognized one friend-of-a-friend out of the interview group of about 15. Two women ran the interview. First, the bad news. They let us know that, due to either the present state of the economy or more exposure, their expected applicant pool had doubled. They would still be accepting about 20% of their applicants. Before those pessimistic numbers sank in, it was time to start the lessons. Most people did a really good job. There was only one that I remember being painful to sit through; some girl was teaching us about plural predicates and I don't think any of us had a clue what she was talking about. I was towards the end. I passed out the materials to my "students" and taught them, step-by-step, how to draw a football-shaped fish. The interaction was fun, and I made fish faces and bubble noises...the works. Five minutes raced by and I just managed to squeeze everything in. I remember feeling that I had messed up because I threw some of the example shapes on the floor while I moved on. Pretty soon it was time for a group interview, a roundtable discussion of education. It was like any bad college discussion section where the one annoying guy dominates the show. I think I got one comment in. Annoying guy was talking about politicians and the government, I don't know, I wasn't really following much. We took a break for lunch and then it was one-on-one interview time.
The half-hour interview started off great when the interviewer, a UVA alum, said that she had read my comic online and was glad to finally meet me. That made the rest of the interview go by a lot easier, and I left feeling good about my chances. But here's the best part of the story, in true Zack Morris-esque form. Walking home one night later, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the two recruiters sitting in Arch's, an ice cream place right near my house. They were both going through paperwork and folders; their notes on the applicants and their applications. So I went back home and changed into some nicer clothes, then walked back into Arch's, pretending not to see them while I waited to order. I heard some chattering followed by one of them calling my name. I turned around, feigning surprise, and started a quick five-minute conversation. I asked them how long they were here, how the rest of the interviews went, what ice cream they were having, you know, the usual. I left with a chocolate brownie sundae and everybody smiling.
Shortly after I received a letter in the mail confirming my acceptance into Teach For America and my placement as an English teacher in Baltimore city. Finally, I had a job offer. I was pretty much the last one in my circle of friends to get one. It didn't seem possible that I would be by myself out in the real world in a few months. I flipped through the gajillion (that's a lot) papers TFA sent me. Summer Institute in New York? Pre and post-inductions in Baltimore? Praxis testing? Maryland teacher certification? Whatever I thought that my Teach For America experience would be from these papers was waaay off. I got incredibly tired of people responding to my good news with "Ooh, Baltimore inner-city schools. You're going to have your eyes opened." Seriously, everyone said I was going to have my "eyes opened." How bad could it be?
(Dave's TFA Chronicles are eight short stories about Dave's job as a Language Arts teacher in Baltimore City Public Schools from 2002 to 2003. Read the other chapters: one two three four five six seven eight)
Monday, February 17 at 3:09 PM
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