Afew weeks ago, I returned to the University for the first time since I graduated last May. As a student, many of us described the University as a "bubble,"and I will admit that it was my bubble. But as a volunteer and program director for Madison House, I enjoyed knowing that I was having an impact.
But now I see that there's difference between visiting Charlottesville High School once a week for an hour or two, while being able to come back to my own beautiful world and sophisticated friends in the the University bubble, and spending full days working as the backbone, as a faculty member, of a school even more under-funded and with students more economically disadvantaged than CHS.
My reality has shifted and I came back last weekend to share my new experiences -- now as a Teach For America corps member -- with students interested in applying to the program. Teach For America is a national program that recruits college graduates to teach in underserved public schools and high-poverty communities all over the country for two years as part of joining a movement to end educational inequity in our nation. Our mission is to close the achievement gap between high-income and low-income communities in the hope that all children, regardless of background, will have an equal chance to attain an excellent education. We work towards big goals -- making at least one and a half grade levels of growth. We rely on the ongoing professional development that Teach For America provides and the constant drive to improve how we teach through data. We show our students their growth as part of leading them to believe and want to achieve and succeed.
But what does all this really mean?
Currently in my first year as a corps member, I teach kindergarten in the Mississippi Delta. As I prepared to start the school year, I assumed that the children couldn't be too far behind -- it was, after all, their very first year of elementary school. Most children in high-income communities entering kindergarten can recognize their names in print and even write their names. They know most, if not all, of the letters in the alphabet, communicate actively with adults and their peers, and can count above twenty as part of basic school readiness. What I found was that many of my students couldn't recognize more than a few letters in the alphabet. Some of them couldn't count to ten or speak in a complete sentence to me or their friends.
At the end of my first week, I remember sitting at my desk and looking at my classroom. I looked at the dusty primary readers, the phonics program with missing supplies, and the math games with lost pieces, and felt overwhelmed by the lack of resources that I had at my disposal to bring my students to grade level. But I took a deep breath and looked at the possibilities. I looked out of the window to the broken swings on the playground, the boarded up houses across the street and a black man in a tattered coat walking on the crumbling sidewalk in a daze with a brown paper bag in his hand. I saw that I had the opportunity to defy the low expectations and the legacy of racism that trapped even my five-year-olds in communities where their parents and grandparents remained caught in a cycle of poverty. The education from me in this classroom could be their freedom.
I first introduced the children to our big goals in their own language, which for them is being able to read 100 sight words by the end of the year. I looked at the results from their evaluations and plan games and interventions to help them master the skills they needed to know. If I couldn't find books or materials for my lessons, I have borrowed, bought or created them myself.And I have seen so much progress and success with all of our goals. A student who didn't know the letters in his own name at the beginning of the year, now knows not only his own name, but all of the other students' names by heart.He knows the entire alphabet and in a test at the end of the first semester, he was already on a mid-first grade level in some areas.
We have driven ourselves toward our big goal in Math: to count to 100 by the 100th day of school. We practiced counting to 100 every day for three months.
And my students took it beyond the classroom: they counted to 100 with each other at recess, at lunch and even in the hallways at bathroom break! By the 100th day, nearly everyone could count to 100 and every single one could count above the state standard, which is 20. We had a "Hundred Number Party" where families came to class, the children received awards, played games involving 100 and had over 100 treats, from cupcakes to rice cakes! Our classroom is becoming a space of pride where the children can feel their achievement. Now, nearly all of the children are on track toward reaching our big goals and the majority have reached a beginning first grade level. Now, it's time to move the other ones still falling behind up to speed, so that no child, truly, will be left behind.
As a student at the University, a lot of my community service focused on promoting African-American history and addressing racism at the University. I left feeling gratified that I had tried to make a difference in my own corner of the world. Now the extent of my impact goes beyond "the bubble." Teach For America has given me the chance to use what I have learned to tackle the legacy of racism and inequality in America at its roots, in a community where the victims are often younger and less powerful than we are. It has given me the opportunity to turn around children's lives and thus the future of a community and a nation. The ideas in our books; the discussions in our classes; and volunteering our time when in college isn't just for its own sake. The end result of it all should be to prepare us to work in public service full-time, making a difference with our own talents, once we have graduated.
Jade Craig graduated from the College in 2006. He is a Teach for America corps member.
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