Yo, teach!

This week has been a life-changing week for me -how dramatic is that. It has involved nerves, waiting, talking to myself, email checking, postman harassing, waiting, and waiting. Months ago – because I’m so lax at updating this – I mentioned I had decided to try my hand at teaching. After much research I knew I had 2 choices: firstly, was the traditional grad school route where I would earn a masters and certification in around 10 months at either Penn or Temple (2 Unis in Philly), and secondly, an alternative program call the Philadelphia Teaching Fellows, which gives you 5-6 weeks of intensive training in the summer and places you in a full time teaching position in September with full pay. Which would you pick? I applied for both.

In the beginning I was Penn all the way until I went to an open day and discovered the fees had gone up to a huge $43,000 for 10 months. The minute they let that slip I think everyone mentally crossed Penn off. How can they charge that much? Doctors and lawyers I can understand, but teachers. I wouldn’t make that much in a year.
The choices were down to Temple (at a much more respectable $12,000) and the Teaching Fellows.

I had been umming and ahhing about the Teaching Fellows and finally decided to apply one drunken night. Grad school was the way I was going, but things started to change when I went along to a Fellows information session. I learnt that it’s a program run by Philly’s school district and basically recruits new graduates or professional people to work in “high needs’ schools in Philly. “High needs” is code for the lowest performing, poorest, blackest schools in the city; the one I tutor in is a high needs school. The idea being that the secret to improving the schools is to put better teachers in them. While teaching, the “fellows” would attend a grad school at a reduced rate and earn their masters and certification – with up to 3 years to finish.

The other attendees were a motley crew – young uns like me, people who looked stereotypically teachery, the occasional power suit, and a few older folks. The staff was extremely enthusiastic and it was infectious - I quickly started warming to the idea. The pros: you get paid, you are ensured a job, you get the masters, and you are actually teaching and not talking about it. The cons: you get thrown into a classroom with minimal training, and the classrooms are some of the worst in Philly. Big cons. I left feeling very happy about my drunken decision and really wanting an interview. They told us out of the 1000 applicants they were expecting they would interview around 500 and choose 80 – 100 to become fellows.

So I waited. They would let me know within two weeks if I had an interview. Two weeks went by. I was so upset. I hadn’t given this thing any thought a few weeks ago and now I was gutted I hadn’t got an interview. So I pinned my hopes on Temple. Then an email arrived, “Congratulations you have been invited to attend an interview day for the Philadelphia Teaching Fellows”. Huh. Holy shit. I got an interview. Oh my God. I quickly signed up for the only day they had left – 5 days away.

The interview was 4 hour long. I arrived at the brand new Philadelphia School District building, signed in, and join the other interviewees in a tension stuffed waiting room. There were maybe 50 people there, men women, young, old, but everyone with a slight look of terror in their faces. I tried to eat some of the free energy bars and chatted to the girl next to me for a painful ten minutes. Finally we were split up into groups of twelve. First hurdle was a five-minute teaching sample for any subject or any grade (the cause of much of the terror). I had planned a five-minute introduction to haiku poetry – those tiny 17-syllable Japanese poems. I shook and croaked my way through; asking them about syllables -“how many syllables in “cat”? How many syllables in “catapult”? talking about the origins, going through an example, making them close there eyes and describe the image the words made in their heads. I thought it went really well. Especially as so many other people just lectured and didn’t ask any questions,
Then came a group discussion. Thirty minutes of disjointed hypothetical chat, and I was amazed but some people didn’t speak. Hello - you’re in an interview! That was followed by a writing sample, and finally the day ended with a thirty minute one on one interview. My interviewer had grandparents in Dorset so that killed a few minutes, and then I was fired questions such as: what would you do if you had no textbooks on your first day/ first few months; when was the last time you failed at something – God bless algebra; what would you do if you didn’t get into the fellows; how do you think your teaching sample went; what did you think of everyone else’s teaching samples? And on and on.

They would be in touch within two weeks. Now I really wanted it. It just made sense. Yes it would be terrifying, going into a school with 6 weeks of training and into a challenging school. But I would be teaching, really teaching. By September. And if I absolutely hated it I could leave and try something else, without having paid $43,000 for the training.

Waiting is excruciatingly painful. Days ticked by with me checking my email every ten minutes. Nothing. Then after 13 days of pain I had an answer. I had been selected. I think the noise I made was “Arghug”, and then the tears came. I had been selected. In five months I will be standing in front of my own class.

Now, a few days later, I feel great –I am so happy and only slightly terrified. My acceptance letter was posted today; I am officially a Summer 2006 Philadelphia Teaching Fellow. I told you it has been a life-changing week. I know it’s going to be exhausting, wonderful, emotional, scary, frightening, soul-breaking, sickening, and rewarding. I have been dying for a challenge, waiting for my life to begin properly over here, and now its finally happening. Wish me luck, I have a feeling I will need it.

www.philadelphiateachingfellows.org