Book Review: Relentless in Pursuit

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A few weeks ago I finished “Relentless In Pursuit: A Year in the Trenches with Teach for America” by Donna Foote. I began reading this book to research more about Teach for America since I had applied to the program. This book is the record Foote kept of the experiences faced by several TFA corps members during their first year teaching in 2006 at Locke High School in Watts, CA. At this time Locke was one of the lowest ranking schools in California and has some of the highest drop-out rates. Since that time Locke has become a Green Dot charter school so I am not sure how it is preforming currently, but in 2006 it was pretty rough.

I think this book is a great read for anyone that is interested in joining the TFA program. It gives a thorough explanation of how TFA started back in 1990 and how it has evolved through the years. It also shares the trials and tribulations of four TFA corps members trying to get through their first year of teaching in a school where most students didn’t show up and gang violence was an everyday occurrence. Funny enough, I actually finished the book on the day I discovered I was rejected from the TFA program.

Before I even applied to TFA I knew I had several issues with the program, and this book just emphasized those issues. Firstly, the book explains how many of the teachers at Locke High School in 2006 were actually permanent substitutes that were not certified to teach. As a certified teacher that cannot find a job, you can imagine this sends chills down my spine. Secondly, a lot of the difficult issues these first year teachers experienced bothered me. I believe all first year teachers are going to experience issues, so that was not the problem. What disturbed me was I had also dealt with most of their issues during student teaching. These were not new problems. Things like poor class attendance, student disrespect and distant, unreliable parents are universal issues in highly populated urban schools right now, they are not unique to schools like Locke. As these corps members struggled to figure out how to create lessons and deal with the difficulties of first year teaching, they all made mistakes along the way. Once again, this is to be expected for any first year teacher, and I think these corps members did a great job, but it just reemphasized the fact that these kids were no different than me. I had faced these issues student teaching, and I would face these issues again in my first year teaching.

So I suppose my main issue with TFA is this: although the program is one of the most competitive in the country, accepting roughly 2,000 corps members out of over 35,000 applicants, corps members themselves; extremely ambitious, ivy league graduates with a resume filled with leadership positions, look just like me when they start teaching. But unlike me, they will leave TFA in two years, complete with a Master’s degree and a resume of gold.

In addition, the inner city schools that these corps members are teaching in do not just need corps members, they need certified teachers. But the problem is there is no incentive for certified teachers to teach in the Mississippi Delta or Miami. My mother has 10 years of teaching under her belt, a Masters Degree in English and has taught in inner-city Las Vegas schools for the past two years. When she comes back to New York this summer I promise you nobody is going to thank her for the selfless work that she has accomplished there. She will just be another certified English teaching struggling to find a job closer to home in this tough economy.

I think we need to have another type of program that is similar to TFA, but only accepts certified teachers. They will continue to have the support system of TFA corps members, and they will also teach in urban schools and focus on closing the achievement gap. It will work towards getting dedicated, certified teachers in all schools across the country. And most importantly, these teachers will be praised and respected the same was TFA corps members are after their 2 years of service.

I apologize for this rant-type post. Back to my original point: if you have any interest in what TFA is all about I would highly recommend this book. I found in interesting and highly informative.

The power of foursquare lists!

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In the two months I interned at foursquare several changes came out to the platform. One of the most exciting was the introduction of lists to both the website and eventually the iPhone and Android app. In the past three days Radar has come out of iPhone and now that is the most new and exciting addition to the platform. Radar is really cool, and I’m looking forward to seeing how it performs tonight when I go to the city for my friend’s birthday.

But today I want to tell you about a really positive experience I had 3 weeks ago using foursquare lists. I was going out on a Friday night with my boyfriend and my two housemates from college. None of us are native NYers but we all were commuting daily for school/work/internships. That day it was my responsibility to pick where we should hang out that night. I know NOTHING about cool places in the city and had no idea what to do.  But then I remembered, hey, I am friends with a bunch of foursquare employees that live in NYC and have obviously left plenty of tips at good venues to check out! I decided I would snoop around my friends tips at venues and create my own list of good places to check out that night with my friends.

Creating a list is pretty simple, I used my computer to create the list but I was easily able to add venues using my iPhone as well. I looked around for positive tips my foursquare friends had left at various venues around the city. If the bar seemed like a good time and was in walking distance, I added it to the list. So this was awesome, I now had a list of places I could check out with my friends that night.

Now I had an idea of where I wanted to go in the city, my only problem; I have the worst sense of direction on earth. And even though these places have nicely labled addresses I knew I would still struggle to find them. This is where my very favorite thing about lists comes in!

It conveniently places all the venues on a map for you! You can also click on the different pinpoints to see which venue is which. With this map and list of venues even I, the queen of getting lost, was able to direct my friends to different fun places around the city.

I was so proud of myself, I have always been the person that just follows people around while in the city, but finally I was able to lead my friends to cool and new places. This was so useful to me that day and I definitely plan on using lists again in the future. I could use lists again when i go to a new city, or create a list of local restaurants I’ve been meaning to check out. The possibilities truly are endless. And now with the introduction of radar, you even get a push notification when you are near a venue you have added to a list.

Why overthink? Confidence is key.

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My brother is 9.5 years younger than me. Currently, he is a 12 year old boy that loves hanging out with other 12 year-olds, avoiding homework, playing x-box, and cheering on the NY Giants/ Detroit Lions.

The Monday night game this week is the first in Detroit since 1974. The Lions just scored a touchdown a few minutes ago and my brother came to knock on my door to see if I saw the play. I told him I had and that I was pumped. He then immediately closed my door and proceeded to knock on my Dad’s door.

My Dad wakes up at 6am every morning and is asleep by 10:15 every night. When I was 12 years old I would have never knocked on my Dad’s door at 10:50pm. There have been nights, even this year, that I wonder if my dad is still awake when I see the TV glowing from underneath his door. But I still don’t want to knock, I don’t want to disturb.

Every year my Mom bakes Christmas cookies that we deliver to the neighbors. When I was younger I dreaded delivering those cookies. The neighbors were always happy to see me, (who is bothered by a cookie delivery?) but it was just so awkward. Now my brother happily looks forward to delivering the cookies on Christmas Eve.

He also has one of those lame school fundraisers where you sale baked goods and tchochkes from a catalog in hopes of gaining a $5 prize. He has gone door to door to all of our neighbor acquaintances, and he has already sold over $50 worth of goodies. He is not ashamed or embarrassed at all, he wants to gain fund-raising money so he is perfectly fine with asking neighbors for help.

I always over thought everything. I would feel so awkward it would almost consume me! If I knocked on my sleeping father’s door at night, really what bad things could happen? My brother does not have this fear. He knows what he wants and if he might feel awkward or embarrassed on his path to achieving his goal it doesn’t matter because he wants to get things done. It took me years to gain the skills he has now. I am proud of him and I think this confidence will get him where he wants to go when he’s older.

Ideas for Teaching

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Hello, long time no chat. This week is my last week at foursquare. I know I will have a lot of free time next week so I keep procrastinating about a new blog post. I keep thinking, “Oh, I’ll have so much time to do that next week.” This is true, but I thought I would post something today.

I would also like to mention that today I was rejected from Teach for America. I didn’t even get to the interview stage. I felt pretty poor about myself for a few minutes, but you know what? I have my whole life to become a good teacher.

Here are some of the things I plan to do when I become a teacher.

1. Have Clear Academic Expectations for Students.

  • Create an website for myself (possibly through the school if they offer it) to post class assignments, class expectations, assessment dates and my contact information. This could be a resource for students with computers at home. It could also be a way for parents to monitor their students assignments.
  • Always post the days objectives and homework/assignments on the board.
  • A portion of the “Do Now” time at the beginning of class will be reserved for copying down assignments.
  • Rubrics, Rubrics, Rubrics! I would create them when necessary, mostly for essays and projects.  We would always take some class time to go over the rubric material. I would remind the students to check over the rubric after completing their assignment to make sure they had completed all the requirements.
  • Provide a review day before every test
  • This goes along with the rubric, but I would always devote some class time to fully explain a project or essay. I would also take time to periodically remind the kids to continue working on the assignment on the days leading to its due date.

2. Have Clear Behavioral Expectations.

  • Create a class contract. This is an idea I would like to play with if I ever teach. On the first day of school the students would be required to think of important rules we should make that everyone would abide by for the whole year, and we would put this in a class contract. We would talk them over together and I would show my main rules that I thought needed to be in the contract. (Respect others, come to class prepared, complete homework, etc) The next day I would come in with the finished product. The students would be responsible for signing the contract and agreeing to the terms and conditions. I would post a large copy of the contract at the front of the room. Students who disobeyed our contract would be dealt with accordingly.
  • Similar to what I was just saying, class rules should be posted somewhere in the class.
  • There should be a punishment policy. Something like “Minor offense/1st offense= warning. Offensive behavior/2nd offense= lunch detention. Major offense/3rd offense= referral and ejection from the classroom.” I hate taking kids out of class, but sometimes when they are a distraction to others, it needs to be done. Also, a lot of kids also stop misbehaving when the threat of being kicked out happens. (some kids are unfazed though, unfortunately.)
  • Sometimes other punishments can happen. For example, if groups are trying to gain points during a review game, i could deduct points for bad behavior.
  • NEVER ARGUE with a student. The second you argue, the second that you have validated the claim that they actually have a point to argue against.
  • Along the same lines, keep your cool. Kids are entertained seeing a frazzled, angry teacher and you also lose respect.
  • When things get too chatty or crazy, switch assigned seats.
  • Have plans that should cover the entire period to eliminate down time.
  • Call/email parents. It matters!

3. Have a Routine.

  •  Have a “Do Now” every day when the students walk in. For me, this typically included copying down homework assignments and some sort of short answer question about the previous days material.
  • Post Aim/Objectives on the board everyday. (This is required by many schools.)
  • Unit Vocab Sheet: I created a vocabulary sheet that the students brought to class everyday. We would fill out the definitions in class. This sheet became a great study guide for the students, and a really easy A when the students handed it in for a grade on the day of their test each unit.
  • Always provide unit review sheets/Unit Review day. I’m a big fan of creating a review sheet and playing a review game the day before a test. This way the students realize if they are unprepared and it ensures that they did at least a little bit of studying/review before a test.

4. Differentiate.

  • I LOVE routine, but that doesn’t mean you class needs to be boring!
  • Make sure lessons and assessments are both differentiated often.
  • Differentiated Assessments include: Tests, Quizes, Homework, Essays, Art Projects, Computer Projects, Group Projects, Presentations, etc.
  • Relate any content material you can to current events! Sometimes new events pop-up that coincide well with the content material. For example, a lot of people have been referring to Occupy Wallstreet as an act of civil disobedience. If you are teaching Indian Nationalism or the Civil Rights movement… incorporate this new stuff!
  • Try to work with another teacher to pair units together. For Social Studies you could work with an English teacher to teach a history Unit that coincides with the literature they are reading in English class. I also think you could do Geography based things with a Science teacher.
  • I love class field trips, but make sure the trip can relate to what you have been studying. If the students can take a trip and see the knowledge they gained in the classroom is relevant in other places they will be more engaged in the the trip. Also, make sure they go somewhere interesting! (I went to way too many Revolutionary War battle sites as a kid.)

5. Work Hard.

  • Have lessons fully planned at least a week in advance. Make sure you have all the materials and copies you will need as well.
  • Make sure your unit plan has clear objectives and a basic time line of events/topics before you start.
  • Keep your room and desk clean and organized.
  • Only assign work that is meaningful, don’t give kids busy work for homework.
  • Return work in a timely fashion. This will show the students that you take their work seriously.

6. Be Involved.

  • Go to the students extra-curricular events. (Talent shows, concerts, games, plays, meets.) You should know what achievements your students are making in and out of the classroom.
  • Chaperon trips, advise clubs, coach teams if time allows.
  • Praise students for positive achievements. Call parents when a student has made great improvement!

What I want to do

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Lately finding a job has been my main thought. I go to my internship at foursquare everyday and i am working with 60 other people that have full-time jobs with health insurance benefits and annual salaries. I commute daily with hundreds of people who will be traveling for much longer than the 2 months I’m experiencing. One of my housemates gained an introductory level advertising job this summer. It makes me think that I need a career, and I need one now.

This foursquare internship has introduced me to a lot of different people and trains of thought that I wasn’t used to. Because foursquare was only created 2 years ago, the founders and creators still work there, and over half of the company is made up of creative and talented engineers, I feel like foursquare has a “I can create my own type of career/destiny” mentality. And I think these people are absolutely correct. Dennis and Naveen had an idea and they turned it into a reality. The engineers can create different phone apps or websites easily, and their skills would be quickly picked up by other start-up web company if they chose to leave foursquare. Everyone else at the company left another job to work for this small, up and coming start-up where they would actually have a valued opinion in the development of the company.

I’m happy I’ve had this experience and I would be totally willing to work for another start-up company in the future. In some ways it is refreshing to work with these people. In other ways though I find it extremely daunting and intimidating. I thought I was into technology and Social Networking, but these people know about all of the latest phone apps and social websites. I am fresh out of college at a small state school. These people all went to private well known Universities and have impressive resumes at well known companies. (At least 1/3rd of foursquare worked at Google at some point) I feel like everyone has their own ideas that they think are valuable. They see every new idea as an innovation, a possible invention, a possible future start-up company or phone app. I have heard people in the office start sentences with statements like “If i had the balls to start my own start-up….”

That is not the lifestyle most people grow up with. We think we can work hard and someone will hire us based on our work ethic and responsibility. Hopefully we can find a job that we like with an understanding boss and decent vacation time. People at foursquare do not wish for things to happen, they make things happen. Dennis and Naveen became their own bosses. I think several of foursquare’s employees will go on to do bigger and better things on their own time with their own agenda.

Now I look at myself. I thought about applying to a Community Development position at Meetup.com yesterday. I think Iwould be good at the position if I got the job, but I don’t think I have the qualifications or the gumption to actually get that job. I know many people say “you never know until you try”, and I believe that. But today as I was riding the train home I was reading a book called “Relentless Pursuit” about what life is like in the Teach for American program. Just reading about teaching (and this book talks a LOT about the difficulties and problems of teaching) reminded me of how much I enjoyed teaching. I did not feel intimidated or out of place. I felt welcomed, talented and important; even when students wanted me to feel like crap.

I believe that I too am an innovator like the people at foursquare. But I don’t look a the world and thing “what can I do to make social media easier for individuals?” or “what can I do for MTV to make foursquare valuable to their marketing strategy?” I look at cool non-profit organizations and think “How could I as a teacher get my kids involved in this as a part of our classwork?” or “How can I incorporate technology skills in the classroom without it being a useless waste of time?” At foursquare I often feel stuck. When I am in the classroom I feel great, and when I am out of the classroom I love to think about what I can do in the classroom.

Foursquare has given me an awesome opportunity to see that I don’t have to follow the beat and path, I can create something new. But I also have to remember that what I truly want to do is something that is unfortunately still in the prehistoric days when it comes to the hiring process. I think I just need to be true to myself and I need to remember that although I might not immediately get a teaching job, it is what I want to do and I should wait it out to make sure that I get to do what I truly enjoy. And when I finally do get a job I will keep that foursquare mentality in the back of my mind and remember that innovation is not just for start-up companies.

10 years ago

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I wanted to write a short post about the 10th Anniversary of the September 11th attacks mostly because I am having a bit of trouble sleeping and I thought this could help. I think this is partially the reason I’m actually having trouble going to bed.

10 years ago I was in 7th grade Spanish class when our assistant principal explained to us that an airplane had hit one of the Twin Towers. My first thought was “How did a pilot manage to make such a big mistake?” Soon after we found out that both of the Towers had been hit, and we were able to tell that this had been a planned attack.

After that I don’t really remember much of the school day. I know we talked about the attacks in Science class. Luckily my classmates and I all lived far enough North from the city that none of our immediate family members had been effected. I remember I got home from school that day and watched TV for a few minutes. It started to upset me. The images of the Towers falling give me this huge depressing weight in my stomach every time I see them. Those were the only images you could see on the television for days and days.

I mostly think of September 11th as a terribly horrific and tragic day in our nations history. I certainly will never forget that day and I greatly admire the absolutely insane amount of courage firefighters and other first responders showed on that day. But there is something about that day that makes me feel so sad that I almost feel sick, still.

I am proud to be an American, I am proud to be from New York (even if its not the city!) I love my life and my family and I appreciate everything I have and this beautiful world that we live in. Even though there are great evils out there, I know that there is much more love, compassion and sacrifice. My mom always says that “the squeaky wheel gets the grease.” I think the same goes for evil and destruction… its gets more attention. But there were thousands of people that came to help in the aftermath of 9/11 as well as many other crises we have faced since then. I see people in my life working hard to do great things to help people and our planet on a day to day basis.

9/11 is a great example of a tragedy that we were able to overcome because of love, compassion and self-sacrifice. There are many other things out there that we can also overcome together with the same ingredients. Always remember this day, not only as a tragedy, but an example of a challenge that we were able to overcome together.

Increased importance of twitter in my life.

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awesome propganda poster on Esty. (Good for my Social Studies heart)

When I look at my twitter profile I can see that I joined twitter on May 3, 2009. That is a solid 2.25 years of twitter in my life. I have to be honest, when I first got a twitter I thought it was stupid. I thought tweets were identical to a facebook status except that they  included confusing items such as #’s and @’s and limited my characters to a frustrating 140 (that is something I still struggle with on twitter.) Twitter also seemed less than accessible to me because I would have to remember to check my page when I was sitting at my laptop.

Fast forward one year: around 2010 I continued to user twitter, pretty sparingly, but it did become useful to me at times. I remember I would sit in the library on a Sunday doing work for school. My housemates and I didn’t have cable, plus I would be trying to do my work, so I would wind up trending a topic such as #NYGiants to see how they were doing in their game. Tweets come out instantaneously, whereas news articles take at least a few minutes to get published.

Twitter also became useful to me when I began to follow organizations and politicians I was interested in. I like to follow Barack Obama so that I can see what he is up to on a day to day basis. His tweets also include photos, videos and interesting news articles. In the same respect, I follow republican candidates for the same reason, so that I can see what they are up to. I know they cater their twitter pages to their fans, so I know I am seeing those candidates from the best perspective. That is something I rarely see, considering I went to college in a hippy town and I currently spend every day in Manhattan. I am also able to find out information about my favorite organizations such as Invisible Children and 350.org.

The iPhone makes twitter much more useful and accessible to me. Tweets are so short you shouldn’t have to log on to a laptop to check them, they are something that you should have access to when you are in a waiting room or on a train. When i log on to my phone the three things I immediately check (typically in this order) are email, twitter and facebook. I have gone from using twitter once per month, to checking and tweeting 3-4 times a per day.

Two weeks ago at foursquare we all felt the floor shaking beneath us. After 30 seconds of stress someone suggested, “was that just an earthquake?” Someone else was able to instantly check twitter and confirm, yes, it had been an earthquake, and it looks like over hundreds of other people had also felt the shakes.

5 days later after Hurricane Irene, I was able to follow @NYTMetro to get by-the-minute updates about the Metro-North and Subway for Monday. By this time we had lost power and internet, so my twitter timeline was the only way I was able to know that the Metro-North was closed on Monday.

So this was my experience with twitter. It has gone from being a useless, overcomplicated, facebook status to being a useful, constantly up-to-date news service in my life. I have known for a long time that twitter is a very successful start-up tech company that millions of people love, but it is only recently that twitter has become a very valuable resource in my life.

___

*Sorry I haven’t written a post a while. Hurricane Irene did eventually manage to take out power and it didn’t return for 48 hours. Then I spent the week in Bronxville with my boyfriend. (Commuting to the city from Bronxville is so much easie/faster than Garrison. ) I also want to acknowledge the fact that this blog is by NO means a tech blog. My posts so far have been about technology, but I plan to branch out soon to other topics like food, books, teaching, and anything else that is happening in my life.

Useful iPhone apps (from someone who is relatively new to the iPhone)

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This past June I purchased my first smartphone, the iPhone 4, and it is a pretty awesome device. I think people who have had a smartphone for a while forget how little you can do with a basic cellphone.

I love this phone for many reasons, but it is especially nice to have for the 70 minute train ride I take to and from NYC five days a week for my internship. The other day for example, I was able to pay my phone bill (paying your phone bill with your phone makes it almost fun), request a book from my library and read all the blogs i subscribe to on my google reader. The iphone allows you to actually do productive work while on the train and now I don’t have to worry about those things when I get home.

The iphone 4, like most Apple products, was really simple to learn how to use. I’m sure I still am not using the phone to its full potential but I have a lot of fun learning about new apps I can download to constantly make my phone more useful and fun for me to use.

Today I thought I would make a list of my Top 5 Most Useful iPhone Apps. This list is made up of apps I had to download from the app store (they did not come with the phone) and I find them useful. I will create another post later to talk about my favorite fun iphone apps.

1. Feeddler RSS
There are a lot of blog reader options out there that can automatically connect to your Google Reader subscriptions. In all honestly I randomly picked this one out of the app store based on the number of stars it had based on customer reviews. (Those stars really help!) I have had no complaints with this reader. It organizes things nicely, doesn’t crash and loads quickly. I use this every morning to catch up on new posts!

2. The Weather Channel
Sorry if I am stating the obvious here, but this is a great app. I know Apple Weather comes with the phone but this app organizes things nicely with tabs for Current, Hourly and 10-Day forecasts. It has also been surprisingly accurate.

3. Ride MNR
If you ever find yourself riding the Metro-North Rail Road this app is AWESOME. It has all the departure times for all stations in the Hudson, Harlem and New Haven Rail lines. It sure beats those paper pamphlets from Grand Central that seem to get updated every week.

4. My Verizon/Chase Mobile
Obviously if you use another bank or cellphone company you would download those apps accordingly. This is just to highlight how awesome it is to have a mobile bank app and apps to pay your bills. Paying bills via phone is super easy. Just make sure you include a passcode on your phone and always log-out after using one of these applications.

5. Shazam
Shazam is something I have been waiting my whole life for. It allows you to record a quick 5-second clip of a song and magically manages to figure out the song name and artist. Until this app I was the person who would frantically look for a scrap piece of paper in my handbag or write notes in my phone trying to catch a few broken lyrics so I could google search them later. This app works pretty consistently and has even been able to pick up some slightly obscure music. I even tested it out on the “Bedroom Intruder” Song and it recognized it. If you download the free app you can only search for 5 songs per month, but for $3.99 you get unlimited searching for 1 year- a price I though was rather reasonable.

All of these apps are rather popular and easy to find through a quick search of the Apple App store. They have made my iPhone experience more useful and therefore more enjoyable, and I look forward to discovering even more useful apps in the future.

Hello Blogging World!

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I am currently sitting inside waiting for Hurricane Irene to knock down our power lines. I thought this was a fitting time to begin a blog. I am not new to blogging, I created one back in high school when it was fun to post your feelings across the internet. I also managed the blog for my Invisible Children Club in school. This time I am going to try to do things a little differently.

Just to give you a little background about myself, I currently a Business Development Intern at foursquare in New York City. This past May I graduated from SUNY New Paltz in New Paltz, NY with a BA in Adolescent Education with a concentration in Social Studies. During my last semester of school I was given the opportunity to Student Teach 9th and 10th grade Global Studies and Pine Bush High School and 8th grade Social Studies at Twin Towers Middle School in Middletown, NY. I really enjoyed teaching and I know that is a career choice that is right for me.

Unfortunately, Social Studies Teachers are currently not in high demand in New York, or any state really. So I am trying to figure out what I want to do next in my life. I have several options right now:

a. Get a full-time job, (perhaps at the Macy’s Make-up counter?) try to save some money and apply to teaching jobs over the course of the next year. Perhaps I will apply to Graduate School for Literacy Education during this time. This is my least favorite option.

b. Apply to Teach for American (I already did this) and see if I get in. If i did that would be awesome. I would have a plan, get to be a teacher, and get my Masters all at the same time. It would also be the most insane, labor intensive two years of my life, but I’m ready for that challenge.

c. Work off of my foursquare experience and attempt to get jobs/internships working with Social Media and technology. I think I would step away from the Business Development area (Even though I really enjoy this experience, I don’t really think BD is my strong suit) and I would lean more towards entry-level Social Media Management or Office Assistant positions.

Other than my job search I’m a pretty typical 22 year old gal. I have a great family, a boyfriend, a dog and a couple very close friends from school and home. I like to eat, listen to music, craft, go out to eat and go to the movies.

I plan to use to use this blog to talk about various things that I experience and have interest in. I will talk about my experiences working with foursquare and applying to Teach For America. Hopefully I will talk about delicious food, new technology I love and other useful things.

I plan to post often, so thanks for listening!