Our World. There are no skies to limit us :)

A Dream Box

If I didn't join Teach for America... where would I be right now? I am about to finish year 4 of teaching math - how did that happen?

I I wasn't teaching...
I'd be living somewhere in South America with a backpack, my snowboard and better dancing flow.

I can't think of anything else I would want to do. Ha.

Because I did join Teach for America, now I want to...
- work as a policy analyst or consultant to get the DREAM Act/ASSET bill passed. I want ALL students to have the opportunity to go to college for in-state tuition. If a kid goes through K-12 in Colorado, aren't they a resident of Colorado? C'mon America.

OR

- work for immigration reform in Washington DC, Arizona, Colorado or California to help legal US children who were born into undocumented families get health insurance. Did you know that a US citizen who has parents that are undocumented doesn't have access to health care until they are 18!? YIKES. Remember when you had ear infections, needed stitches and went to the dentist and got a prize from the treasure chest?

OR

- be a ski bum in Crested Butte, Steamboat or Telluride. Then run marathons in the summer and fall.

Ah, the beauty of life is that I just might do any one of these things sometime soon. Teaching a blast, for now.

Inspired, and Defeated

I was inspired today.

My students came to me to sponsor a club - speak! - a club focused on listening to slam poetry, reading and then creating their own poetic performance. Today I heard things like, "you can't knock abortion at 16 years old unless you know what its like to be 16 and pregnant" and then "it's just like the people that don't agree with universal health care, they've had health care their whole lives and don't know what its like to pay for the ER every time you go" and then - "I don't want to play the race card, and I don't like to play the race card, but when people freak out that britney's on crack and act all shocked but then don't even flinch when you hear TI's trippin' on drugs, it's expected."

I also heard them talking about how their generation is getting a bad rap for being the generation that feels entitled. Then I heard them explain why they are perceived that way, explained their upbringing and AGREE that they were raised that way. The best part? They provided solutions.
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I was introduced to this guy - Carlos - and was inspired. And defeated.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qnl_zG2KwR0

How do I teach kids about finding the volume of a cylinder when this is going on? How do kids motivate themselves to become good at finding the greatest common factor of a fraction when someone is getting shot? Why would a teenager want to know more about the negative gravitational pull of Earth when there are teen moms struggling to buy formula and diapers?

Why do I feel so defeated - and yet so inspired? This juxtaposition is something that keeps me teaching, and pulls me toward public policy activism. I want to expose the hard truth but change the truth.

I turned 26!

This is a text by Sandra Cisneros, a Latina writer and alum of Loyola Chicago. She has written "House on Mango Street" and a few other texts that are filled with love, passion and insight into the Latino spirit.

What they don't understand about birthdays and what they never tell you is that when you’re eleven, you’re also ten, and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and five, and four. and three, and two, and one. And when you wake up on your eleventh birthday you expect to feel eleven, but you don’t. You open your eyes and everything's just like yesterday. only it’s today. And you don’t feel eleven at all. You feel like you're still ten. And you are—underneath the year that makes you eleven.
Like some days you might say something stupid. and that's the part of you that's still ten Or maybe some days you might need to Sit on your momma's lap because you’re scared. and that's the part of you that's five. And maybe one day when you’re all grown up maybe you will need to cry like when you're three, and that's okay. That's what I tell Mama when she's sad and needs to cry. Maybe she’s feeling three.
Because the way you grow old is kind of like an onion or like the rungs inside a tree trunk or like my little wooden dolls that fit one inside the other, each year inside the next one. That's how being eleven years old is.
You don’t feel eleven. Not right away. It takes a few days, weeks even, sometimes even months before you say Eleven when they ask you. And you don’t feel smart eleven. not until you're almost twelve. That's the way it is.

I teach for....

I teach so that my students will ONE DAY stand in front of a room of people and share how one teacher changed their life.

I teach so that students can advocate for themselves and know they deserve the best from themselves and demand a great education, from their teachers and earn scholarships for college.

I teach to change the minds of the people living outside of poverty and low income communities, so they can hear from me that all students, regardless of their bank account (or lack thereof) can and will achieve at the same level as their wealthier counterparts.

I teach to instill a love of learning to kids that hate school. Math rocks!

I teach to prove the doubters wrong. A student from the "wrong side of the tracks" knows hard work, knows college is a goal, knows their life will change for their family with an education....because great teachers teach change.

I teach for social justice and the future of this country.

Thanks to Teach for America for opening up this opportunity and helping me find myself and my ONE day....

One day, my students will be leaders and problem solvers.

Spring and New Beginnings

I love the smell of spring. You know the feeling, the first day you sense that the dirt is churning out baby tulips and the sunlight feels warmer. Opening the front door and seeing the City Park lake, the slightly greener grass and feeling a light, fresh breeze is why spring is my favorite season. Sure, I love snowboarding but I don't like winter driving, winter boots and dark afternoons.

This spring, I booted a not-so-great guy and feel good about it. Spring cleaning applies to boys as well as underused jeans, shoes and old jewelry - they all find a different, and hopefully more well-suited purpose, in another persons life.

My new beginning this spring will start in June. I am heading back to the orange and pink skies of Phoenix for 6 weeks to work at the Teach for America Institute: boot camp for new corps members. I will be an adviser to a group of fresh teachers, most of them will have just received their college diplomas before heading to Phoenix. Call it Greek Week initiation and education on steroids - good ones. We will shape and develop this country's best and brightest to become effective teachers in our country's lost and forgotten neighborhoods and towns.

I am looking forward to the high energy, the excitement and the eagerness of new teachers. After 4 years, I still love teaching - but I know that this opportunity will be rejuvenating, provide fresh perspective and help me blossom. Just like the emerging tulips this spring, not only will I be planting a love of teaching but I will hopefully learn how to grow and prosper from my colleagues from around the nation.

PHX, here I come!

La Semilla/The Seed

I was inspired to write a poem around the theme: Beginnings. Our high school does a Poetry Cafe frequently where students and staff can submit and read their poetry in front of the whole school during one of our morning meetings before academic classes begin.

This month, I was up late, unable to sleep and this poem came to me in its infancy and has metamorphosed to where it is today, and how I read it today in front of my students and fellow teachers.

The inspiration? The beginning of my life was when I studied abroad in Santiago, Chile so that is where this stems from. This is my story of self-discovery.

La Semilla


Sus palabras fueron una tormenta de sonidos
Como una lluvia de fuerte que estaba cayendo sin ritmo

Yo, en un lugar desconocido, con evidencia de bombas y sufrimiento
Me llenaban con dolor

Y una semilla fue sembrada

Tenia verguenza y me sentia perdida en mi identidad
Habia un muerte por impuestos americanos
y un silencio que nos encerro con las heridas escondidas de la gente chilena
Como sobrevivio la gente chilena abajo la mano fatal del dictador?

Maria, llena de gracia
pero lejos de mi corazon
Su sufrimiento y muerte no tuvo valor
Ella fue un peon para dinero y poder
Cuando vi su alma y espiritu?

Y crece la semilla

Fue el cuento de los desaparecidos
Soy nada mas de un grano de arena
Escucha las voces de las madres de Plaza de Mayo

Y la semilla continua creciendo

Llegue, sabia nada. Ahora, nada.

La semilla, me ha dad mi vida

The English version...

Her words were a storm of sounds
Like a strong rain with no rhythm, they fell

In an unknown place, with evidence of bombs and suffering
I was filled with pain

And a seed was planted

I was ashamed and I felt lost in my own identity
There was a death by our taxes
and a silence that surrounded us with
the hidden wounds of the Chilean people
How did they survive under the hand of a fatal dictator?

Maria, full of grace
but so far from my heart

Her suffering and death had no value
She was a pawn for money and power
When did I see her soul and spirit?

And the seed grew

It was the story of the lost and forgotten

I am nothing more than a grain of sand
Listen to the voices of the mothers at Plaza de Mayo

And the seed continued growing

I arrived, knowing everything. Now, nothing.

The seed, it has given me life.