Sunflower Freedom Project
Most of today’s sessions were pretty helpful. It was useful to watch Lalee’s Kin, a movie showing an example of poverty in the Delta. And although it was an extreme case, it was still good to see some of the issues that families in poverty face.
Then Reggie Brown, former Superintendent of Tallahatchie County, talked to us about how various things work in school administration. He gave us some good advice and I enjoyed hearing him speak.
Next came the blues session. I thought this session should have been optional. Some of it was very interesting but I just felt like I have a lot of things to think about and do before the school year starts and learning about the blues is in no way essential to my success as a teacher this year.
After the blues session we watched an MTC movie documenting people’s change through the course of their first year. That was really neat to see the ups and downs of one of the teachers (Ryan) on that video. You could see the excitement before the school year and then one month into it, his face has a totally different expression like something hit him that he just totally wasn’t ready for. I really hope that doesn’t happen to me. I think I’m mentally prepared and I know it’s going to be hard so hopefully the teaching experience won’t hit me as hard as it seemed to hit him. Anyways, after Christmas his face gets the color back into it and Ben tells us he became an excellent teacher. Hearing about him makes me feel not so nervous if I get to a shaky start.
Next came a really nice treat with the students from the Sunflower County Freedom Project. The kids from the project were extremely bright and presented themselves so well! I was really impressed. This program sounds like it is extremely effective and it made me think about my previous job managing a youth program. I think about the kids that were in my program and I wish I could have done so much more for them. It was my first job after the Peace Corps and it was an extremely big responsibility as it was a program federally funded by the US Dept of Education, Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools. We received about $140K per year and looking back, I wish I made better use of that money. I wish I took the kids on more field trips to colleges and museums and found opportunities for them to speak and perform in public as the kids in the Freedom Project were doing. I was bogged down with grant writing and finding new funding sources and other administrative work that was all very new to me. It was a struggle for me plan activities for when the kids came to our after school session. In my time there they did one performance and had one field trip to the community center. I apologize to all of them for not providing the proper direction for the program and better activities for them. I was ill prepared to take on so many tasks and in my heart I feel like I did them a disservice. I’m now very anxious to redeem myself and make a real positive difference by doing something I’ve wanted to do since finishing Peace Corps…teach.
Then Reggie Brown, former Superintendent of Tallahatchie County, talked to us about how various things work in school administration. He gave us some good advice and I enjoyed hearing him speak.
Next came the blues session. I thought this session should have been optional. Some of it was very interesting but I just felt like I have a lot of things to think about and do before the school year starts and learning about the blues is in no way essential to my success as a teacher this year.
After the blues session we watched an MTC movie documenting people’s change through the course of their first year. That was really neat to see the ups and downs of one of the teachers (Ryan) on that video. You could see the excitement before the school year and then one month into it, his face has a totally different expression like something hit him that he just totally wasn’t ready for. I really hope that doesn’t happen to me. I think I’m mentally prepared and I know it’s going to be hard so hopefully the teaching experience won’t hit me as hard as it seemed to hit him. Anyways, after Christmas his face gets the color back into it and Ben tells us he became an excellent teacher. Hearing about him makes me feel not so nervous if I get to a shaky start.
Next came a really nice treat with the students from the Sunflower County Freedom Project. The kids from the project were extremely bright and presented themselves so well! I was really impressed. This program sounds like it is extremely effective and it made me think about my previous job managing a youth program. I think about the kids that were in my program and I wish I could have done so much more for them. It was my first job after the Peace Corps and it was an extremely big responsibility as it was a program federally funded by the US Dept of Education, Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools. We received about $140K per year and looking back, I wish I made better use of that money. I wish I took the kids on more field trips to colleges and museums and found opportunities for them to speak and perform in public as the kids in the Freedom Project were doing. I was bogged down with grant writing and finding new funding sources and other administrative work that was all very new to me. It was a struggle for me plan activities for when the kids came to our after school session. In my time there they did one performance and had one field trip to the community center. I apologize to all of them for not providing the proper direction for the program and better activities for them. I was ill prepared to take on so many tasks and in my heart I feel like I did them a disservice. I’m now very anxious to redeem myself and make a real positive difference by doing something I’ve wanted to do since finishing Peace Corps…teach.
posted by Lee Tran at 9:55 PM
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