Week One: Breakthrough Collaborative
This past week was one of the craziests of my life. It began with training everyday from 7:40 am until around 5:30pm. We are being given a crash course in teaching during the two weeks of training before our students show up for classes. Breakthrough Collaborative is a non-profit which provides a free summer school type environment for the students who wish to get ahead in course material for the next year. It is also known for being a huge proponent of sending its students to college. They believe that to achieve the goal ( a college degree), we must intervene early around age 11 or 12. So this summer I wound up being placed in 8th grade chemistry. I do not know how I recieved this placement, but I told the director I was willing to help with any subject besides math. This week I have learned so much about what it takes to be an effective teacher from professionals who have been teaching in Texas for 3-15 years. Many of the teachers, or instructional coaches, got their start through Teach For America. This week has been full of lesson planning, learning my content, creating visual aids for my future students, and learning about general behaivor and expectations for students. I have now been evaluated twice on my sample teaching and I have learned so much in just one short week. I have come home everyday completely exhausted, overloaded with huge amounts of teaching information. I can already see so many ways in which this internship relates to my classes. I am in the process of learning how to lead a classroom on my own. We will have one more week of training, and then next Monday, I will finally get my 20-25 students. I am nervous, excited, and anxious to get into the classroom. This summer is going to take a lot out of me physically, emotionally and mentally. However, I am so excited about this challenge, and the culture of the Breakthrough Community is super supportive. I know I am not alone with my fellow 44 other Teaching Fellows. I am excited to see what my second and final week of training will bring.
Sounds like it was an exhausting week. You may find you have a different appreciation for your faculty after this experience, particularly after a day (if you should have one of these) when you can hear crickets because your students are so quiet and not engaging in class. I hope you don’t have one of those days, they are terrible. Sounds like they have a structured orientation through which you learn the values, exceptions, norms of the organization and that there are mechanisms in place to provide you constructive feedback about your teaching plans, etc. All good news.