Jason Kopanke’s Neighborhood

 Join MTC if…

- you like challenges. MTC is a challenge, and it is hard; however, it is completely worth it, if you’re up for it.

- you want to change. MTC will surely change you, for better or for worse.

- you’re up for living away from big cities and the metropolitan lifestyle. MTC places you in Mississippi (seems logical, right?), so if you’re up for living in Mississippi, join MTC.

- you want to be a part of something big.  Mississippi needs teachers; Mississippi needs good teachers. As a member of MTC, you have the opportunity to be a good teacher in Mississippi.

- you want to teach. MTC claims that if you can teach in the districts it places you in, you can teach anywhere. Talk about comforting- if you can survive this, you can go anywhere else and be okay.

- you don’t want to teach. MTC is incredible work experience in a difficult environment; I’m convinced that if I can survive (and thrive!) this, that I can do well just about anywhere. Although if you don’t want to teach, you should probably at least really like people- MTC is tough if you’re anti-people.

- you wanted to do Teach for America but weren’t accepted. MTC is better: FREE MASTERS (no strings attached- it is truly free, books and all!), full teaching salary with benefits, a support system that is second to none- from the summer interns to the faculty to the second years, MTC is there for its participants- in good times and in bad, connections and resources in every possible placement site. Enough said.

- you want an adventure. No, MTC is not the wild west; however, it sure provides one crazy experience for all participants.

- you are flexible/ are okay with learning how to be flexible. You have to be as a part of MTC. Your school will probably not be organized, and because of their lack of organization (among other things), you will need to be flexible. Even when you really, really do not want to be.

- you prefer the SEC to the Ivy League. Only kidding. However, SEC football is king in Mississippi, and as a part of MTC, you will be enrolled as a graduate student at the University of Mississippi. Love your alma mater, but embrace your new school and Mississippians will start to see you as one of their own rather than an outsider.

Don't join MTC if...
- you don't like challenges. MTC is an incredible challenge. From the students you will teach to the administration you will work under and the people you will work with, everything will test you and try you. MTC is HARD.

- you have other plans. In order to enjoy the work you do with MTC, your job has to be your main focus, although it should never, ever be your only focus. If you'd rather be doing something else, do it. Your students need you to be all there, and they can tell if you're not.

- you think you can change the state of education in Mississippi. You can't, and you won't. You might have a positive impact on the lives of a handful of students, but you certainly will not change the state of education in Mississippi. The system has been messed up for far too long, and just like Kofi Annan learned with the instability in Kenya, peace will only come if those directly involved, rather than outsiders, want it to come.

- you hate the South. Mississippi is a different world, and those who know that who live there tend to be okay with that. Yes, red meat is a staple in many diets. Yes, people talk with accents that are sometimes impossible to understand. Yes, there are A LOT of really crappy drivers in Mississippi. Yes, rain can add a lot of extra time to your daily commute. Yes, the logic in Mississippi might seem illogical. to you. To them, it makes plenty of sense- accept that fact.

- you'd prefer to live  a cosmopolitan lifestyle in a big city. Mississippi doesn't have any of that. The largest "city" is the capital, Jackson, and if you include the tri-county area, the city's population doesn't even top half a million people. Culture exists in Mississippi; however, you must keep your eyes open in order to find it.

 

- you’re unorganized. I know there are plenty of people in MTC who will tell you that they are not organized. Do not believe them. As a participant in MTC, you must be able to balance teaching in  a critical needs school district with your own coursework. The courses, while not as demanding as undergraduate coursework, still require you to work on your own time. In addition to balancing teaching with studying, you also need to be able to make time for you, time away from school, MTC, and all things teacher related. You won’t survive if you don’t make time for you.

It is astounding how much has changed in my perspective on teaching between October and December. In October, I thought about quitting and going home on a weekly and, sometimes, daily basis. I hated everything about my experience in the Mississippi Delta. Remarkably, my perspective has largely changed. No, everyday is not a walk in the park, but I actually am enjoying not just teaching, but my school and my town. I feel like I have found my niche in the school community and my most effective teacher persona. I even managed to teach the unit I put off all semester, natural selection. I think most of my new found joy in teaching comes from teaching on a four-by-four block. My semester and my course are almost finished. It almost feels like I finished my first year. I have written a year's worth of lesson plans and a year's worth of guided notes sheets.
In terms of the classes this semester, l think the graphic organizers lesson and the visitor's workshop provided useful information about tools I was able to use in the classroom. However, I think the most beneficial activity for me was the community statistics survey. I was startled to see the vast discrepancy in wealth in Greenville. I would never imagine with my daily experiences of students talking about food stamps and their distress in now having to pay for lunch that there are people in the same small town that are earning over $500,000 annually.

Although I am not completely new to the teaching profession, I often feel similar to first-year teachers since I am in my first year at KIPP Delta in Helena, Arkansas. In certain ways (easy and plentiful access to resources, myriad intelligent and hard-working colleagues, high expectations on student behavior and academic output) KIPP is very different from the school I taught at the past two years in Belzoni, Mississippi. In other respects (socioeconomic and racial demographics, general lack of student motivation, administrative acquiescence to parents) it is quite similar to my previous school. In reflecting on this first semester, three major realizations that I have encountered come to mind. I will reflect on each briefly:

1) KIPP students are no different from other students.

The students that I work with in Helena are very similar to my students from Belzoni. If often feel like Helena belongs on the other side of the Mississippi River somewhere deep in Quitman or maybe Leflore County. It would closely resemble other large Delta towns like Greenwood, Clarksdale, and Indianola. Prior to moving to Helena I thought that the students at KIPP were better off socioeconomically than average Delta kids or that they had more committed parents than normal. I found that my students have no silver spoon in their mouth and few doting soccer moms in their house. Students misbehave just as much at KIPP as they do at other public schools. What has actually been even more surprising is the heightened level to which a number of students misbehave as they seem to attempt to either get expelled or get their parents to take them out of KIPP due to our high behavioral and academic expectations.

2) KIPP entails a major commitment on the part of teachers.

The commitment that KIPP teachers make to their students begins early. In looking at my Gmail Inbox, I count over 50 emails sent between myself and KIPP administrators and fellow teachers between the first week of June when I accepted their offer of employment and the last week of July when we began our professional development/orientation. This is in addition to (at least) weekly phone call check-ins while at home in New Jersey that my school director (principal, essentially) and I had regarding my assignments. Yup, assignments. With due dates, criteria and all. On my first day of professional development I had a beautiful new cell phone waiting for me at work. This phone is with all the time and the number goes out all over to colleagues, parents, students, and anyone else who would like to contact KIPP Delta's 7th grade math teacher and debate team coach.

My work day usually begins at 5:30 and I'm usually at school sometime between 6 and 6:30 a.m. I'm rarely the first (or second or third) teacher there. Prep periods are scant and I'm one of the lucky few teachers with a morning AND afternoon one. Multiple teachers have NO PREP PERIOD. I'm also fortunate in that I only teach one core subject. Other teachers teach two (i.e. math and science or English and social studies) and some teach two strands of a core subject in the same classroom (i.e. algebra to 20 kids on the right side of a classroom and geometry to 10 kids on the left side...simultaneously). Although the regular school day ends at 4 p.m. (recently shortened from 5 p.m.) most teachers are expected to do an hour of an extracurricular activity and/or an hour of tutoring in their subject area each evening. Thus, my work day usually ends at 5 p.m. due to daily math tutoring and on Tuesdays and Thursdays it ends at 6 p.m. due to my coaching the debate team. I'm usually home about an hour after my work day ends...although I live only a few minutes' drive from my school. Saturday school occurs bi-weekly throughout most of the school year and a three-week long summer school is mandated as well.   

3) KIPP is the most innovative educational environment I have ever been a part of.

If you are psycho about teaching (and yes, essentially all MTCers fit into this category...at least all of those who last a year) then you will fit right in at KIPP. Far too often I felt that I was working much harder than my colleagues at my previous school. I would literally be laughed at for grading papers (even EXAMS). I was often the first teacher there and the last to leave. Students complained that my class was harder than their others. And on and on and on.... At KIPP, more or less all teaches are crazy, hard-working beasts. Almost everyone on the faculty is 20-something or barely in their 30's and from all corners of the nation. Together we are part of an amazing educational experiment that allows us to choose our own books and curricular material, teach using innovative instructional strategies, change the schedule on a daily basis as necessary (need an extra half hour for math? Just send a text to the phone of the ELA teacher), and sometimes even kidnap kids to get them to achieve at the very highest levels possible (ask me for stories). Where else could you have a school director mandate that teachers jump on a table in the cafeteria in front of the entire student body and sing and dance on cue or enter a classroom where intense pre-algebra instruction is occurring and mandate that every student smile at him while telling the teacher to hold up the arms of students who refuse to smile so they can be tickled into submission (both have happened to me this semester)? Anything but ordinary. Simply extraordinary.The movement is moving.   

Chimaobi Amutah
EDSE  647
Book Review

Is Bill Cosby Right?: Or Has The Black Middle Class Lost Its Mind?
by Michael Eric Dyson

    Each year in cities and towns large and small throughout the United States races for municipal office seem to boil down to two dominant, pervasive, and recurrent political issues: public safety and public education. Crime and education are so important to citizens because they concern not only the voters themselves but, most often, their invaluably precious children. Whether one looks at statistics outlining arrest and incarceration rates or dropout and literacy rates, the racial group doing the worst across the board is Blacks. Myriad theories have been put forth as to why this is the case and a plethora of articles and books have been published based on formal, scientific research as well as informal observation and reflection. In the book Is Bill Cosby Right?: Or Has The Black Middle Class Lost Its Mind? by venerable Georgetown University professor of sociology and cultural commentator Michael Eric Dyson, Dyson reflects on Bill Cosby’s take on why the community that he is a part of seems to fare so poorly in this society.
    The book’s antecedents lie in a highly controversial speech that Bill Cosby delivered in May 2004 after receiving an award at a commemoration event paying homage to the historic Brown v. Board Supreme Court decision of 1954. In his speech, Cosby decried the state of Black youth today who speak improper English, fervently pursue careers as athletes and rappers, and lack the basic self-discipline and motivation to make anything of themselves, their families, and their communities. Cosby’s comments sparked a firestorm of responses, most critically from other Blacks who felt as though Cosby’s age, wealth, and fame have left him out of touch with the current youth of the Black community and thus disqualifies him from making such generalized and hyper-critical statements. Michael Eric Dyson was one such critic who has made a point of combatting Cosby’s harsh rhetoric.
    In his book, Dyson, in true social scientist form, makes the case that extrinsic issues are more to blame for the myriad issues facing urban Black youth of today than a lack of quality parenting as Cosby professes. Dyson points to still-present and documented institutional racism that accounts for police arresting and charging Blacks at rates much higher than other racial groups as well as prosecutors seeking trial and incarceration more often than plea bargaining and judges issuing lengthier prison stays for Blacks. Dyson places Cosby in the same tradition as other elitist Blacks throughout U.S. history who were heavily critical of Blacks who they felt embarrassed the race, particularly in front of Whites--the “Afristocrats” as Dyson cleverly deems them. He makes these points all the more personal with regards to Bill Cosby by pointing to Cosby’s own struggles as a parent such as fathering a daughter out of wedlock and having another daughter publicly struggle with overcoming a drug addiction.
    This book is highly pertinent to the work that we as educators do, particularly at my current school. The KIPP network of charter schools in general and KIPP Delta in particular prides itself on working in rough inner-city and rural communities with majority-Black and Latino students from low-income backgrounds. One of the hallmarks of KIPP is discipline and the lengths to which we go to have our students speak, sit, walk, and even read with proper etiquette is amazing. Visitors to our school from local farming groups to the Governor of Arkansas remark at how amazingly well-behaved, courteous, and well-spoken our students are. This behavior seems to fly in the face of their preconceived notion that our students would be the type of students that Bill Cosby lambasted so passionately back in 2004. Our poor, Black students are expected to be loud, speak improperly, get into fights, and not have high standardized test scores. Far too often, students internalize these expectations and they morph into self-fulfilling prophecies. Thus, Dyson is correct in saying that low-quality parenting is not the predominant factor contributing to the state of Black youth today. Sadly, a lack of exposure to their own possibilities and a dearth of self-esteem are more deserve a greater share of the blame.

In the famed lyrics of Bon Iver's Skinny Love:  "my, my, my, my, my, my, ohhhhhhh."

I  think that the secretary of education made a good point that more is expected of students today than ever before, and, therefore, teachers need to bring more to the table everyday. However, it sounded a lot like the blame-it-all-on-us message I get from my administration everyday. Yes, teachers need to bring there all to the table everyday, but so do our students. Everywhere, not just in schools of education, do we as a society need to be screaming failure is not an option because in my school failure is more than an option is the norm. Many of my students do not see the connection between the here-and-now and their life prospects. While it is my job to help them make that connection, I can only do just that--help. Students and teachers alike need to come into the school house with the perspective that this a life-or-death situation on our hands. The responsibility cannot all rest with the teachers.

 Also, in response to her comments about schools of education not preparing teachers for the work that lies a head of them, preparation can only do so much. One of the things that I most like about MTC is that it teaches all of us that you don't know anything until you go out and DO IT! You can sit in a classroom all day and listen to well crafted theories on teaching, but until you get up in front of 30-something students you don't know SQUAT!

Well, what is there to say about my man, Pete Nelson?  While Pete's speech was not on the order of President Obama speech about race, Pete's speech spoke to a lot the anxieties and fear about teaching and being apart of the teacher corps that I think about and endure all the time. I think Pete's opening sentiment on the uncertainty in his qualifications to be apart of the teacher and feeling unsettled about his qualifications to teach is something that most of us can relate to. I know for me I was scared out of my mind for my first lesson during the summer and then dumbstruck that someone would trust with a class of my own. yes, I know biology, but what makes me qualified to teach--impart knowledge. Now, I am simply resigned to the fact that I know more than my students about biology and that's enough.

More than just the feeling of insecurity that Pete shared, the story he shared about his experience eulogizing one of his students who died untimely struck me. Besides the obvious heartbreak, I think Pete's point about making a small impact on a child's life was an important point to remember everyday. Sometimes I would rather five gut punches than ight hours of teaching, but, alas, teaching does make a difference as cliches as it might sound.

though i think arne duncan's speech on "teacher colleges" was pretty well-crafted, i don't know if i truly still understand the concept of a teacher's college.  before i get into explaining why perhaps the most important thing could be to fund these institutions, i think i need to see if i actually believe in what they are aimed at doing.