Fourth of July in the Nation's Birthplace

I spent most of today rewriting my investment plan and completely scripting out my first forty minutes in front of a classroom. The investment plan is essentially equivalent to giving the 15 to 16 year olds I'll be teaching a reason to want to listen to me. I have several strategies in the plan -- here are some highlights:

1. Graduating from high school is what you need for your first step to anywhere and everywhere.
2. Algebra is integral to graduation. You need three math credits to graduate and they either include, or require Algebra as a basis.
3. Mo' achievement = mo' money.
4. Everyone can be smart. Everyone.

I currently have the lesson plan mapped out to include activities to appeal to different sensibilities. First we throw away the past when I ask them to write why they failed Algebra and we then crumple up the piece of paper and metaphorically clean the slate. Then we talk about why we're here today, with me presenting the key points listed above as reason enough to want to succeed in this class. I'm armed with charts and graphs on this one, hoping to appeal to the tough crowds swayed only by reason and logic. But the last part is my favorite. After students write down their short term and long term goals on a star, I lead them through a visualization technique to help them imagine graduating high school and taking the first step towards their personal life goals. Then they walk to the front of the class, simulating the graduation walk, and adhere their goals star to the "World of Opportunities" wall that will serve to remind them of their goals every day they walk in or out of our classroom.

I know I put a lot of thought to all of this, and I'm proud of how I fused these different ideas together and prioritized the use of differentiated techniques in my teaching to appeal to different learning styles. But I'm still not sure that's going to be enough. I'm not sure that anything I do for these kids will ever be enough to help free them from the neighborhoods they've grown up in, the stories they've heard, the bullets they've seen, or the expectations they've internalized. More than anything, all I want this summer is to help these kids realize that they are worth a hell of a lot more than the world gives them credit for today.

After planning all my investment strategies out, I was feeling pretty good and decided to go watch the fireworks with some friends in TFA. Unfortunately, I had to sit through a horrendous hour long Sheryl Crow concert which almost made me less of a patriot as I hated on her joyous rustic Americana, but I digress. As the fireworks began lighting up the sky, I was reminded again of my own potential to return to a childlike state as I ooohed and aaaahhhed like a five year old seeing the sky filled with color for the first time. Philadelphia sure knows how to put on a show, and in good spirit, began playing clips of famous speeches in American history to accompany the lights. I was up in arms excited when I heard Obama's inaugural speech, but suddenly I was brought to tears when I heard Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a dream" speech. It was not an emotion of raw patriotism or even of the idealism that comes to characterize my age group and certainly my colleagues and I in Teach for America. Instead, it was the swelling of rage inside my body as I heard perhaps the most famous words of that speech:

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

I choked up at the anger I felt that although four decades have passed since that speech was delivered and America has seen the rise of African-Americans in all professional sectors and even the ascension to the White House, African-American babies still have a lesser opportunity for achievement than their lighter toned brothers and sisters across America.

My students both here in Philadelphia and back in DC will be predominantly black. I can't change the culture of the country single-handedly. Nor can I ensure my students that even if they achieve great academic success, that there won't be those constantly second-guessing them or wondering if they just got into college thanks to affirmative action policies. What I can ensure though, is that my students can walk out my doors next spring having the confidence to compete against anyone -- black, white, Latino, Asian, Indian, hybrid, or otherwise beautiful -- and seriously kick some math-ass.

It's going to happen. If there's anything that TFA has taught me so far, it's that whenever you want something, you just got to plan for it. So here's to planning world domination by my army of middle school mathematical masterminds :)

~N.