Monday, August 9, 2010

Officially an Alum

As of last night, I officially became an alumnus of Teach For America as I video-chatted my final meeting with my Program Director. My literal and figurative distance from 88 enabled me to provide Tony with better feedback and it struck me how, despite our best intentions, emotions cloud of better judgement, whether that be in regard to one's work or one's relationships. Despite my abilities to, in all things, be an Econ (how Thaler and Sunstein describe people who can be solely analytical and continually make cost-optimizing decisions), apparently I too am a Human (or someone who's emotions play an aspect in his decision-making, once again as described in "Nudge") It is really interesting to think about life after the corps, and as I've transitioned to life as an alum, I've been continually struck by how holistically transformative the past two years of my life have been. Teach For America does an excellent job focusing on the qualities that make effective corps members, but things like "taking no excuses," making positive assumptions about others and communities, being oriented around explicit goals, et cetera are attributes that are embodied by good people. At the end of the day, no offense to William and Mary, but I think I will look back on these past two years as my most extensive educational period because of the personal and academic rigors of not only surviving, but thriving, in the corps.

Today is Merah Putih (Red and White Day), one of the school spirit days (and by spirit day, the students aren't required to wear the uniform, big stuff!) Additionally, tomorrow is the first day of Ramadan so there is no school, consequently, today had a rather festive atmosphere as tomorrow signals the first break in the school year! I did my part by wearing Red and not assigning homework (hey, it's about as festive as I get :) lol) During my day off tomorrow, I am intending on doing the next few weeks of planning, finishing the working copy of my personal statement, and enjoying sleeping in :)

2 comments:

  1. No red and white cupcakes or sparkly pencils for your students? No games? You need a shot of festivity.

    I want to hear more about your Tuesday challenges.

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  2. Last week's Tuesday challenge: human knot (with the extension of pushing the students to think about how they can organize themselves to win immediately based on pre-planning :) lol, you know me, you play to win the game!) and this week we did "Green Glass Doors" and "Red/White Magic" in honor of Red and White Day.

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