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Corps Year: 2007 |
Why did you choose to come to the Delta?
After growing up in a small town in Michigan and spending four years in a big city for college, I was ready to give the rural lifestyle another try. The Delta has showered me with new and unique experiences, such as deep-fried pickles, blues bands galore, and happy hours in actual barns. You can't find these things everywhere, folks.
What are some of the biggest challenges you face in the Delta?
It's really hard to make the world seem accessible to students who are living in such isolated areas. For so many of my students who have never left the Delta, it's difficult for them to understand why they need to know anything about books, math equations, and lab procedures. A big part of my job is convincing my students that when - not if - they reach past the Delta, they'll need to know something about The Great Gatsby on their path to success.
What are some of the main misconceptions you think people have about the Delta before they visit or live here?
I think people generally do not understand how much help we need with education here. When I try to tell people about my students and the literacy skills they lack, they often have a hard time making sense of those figures. My friends from college, for example, don't quite understand what a 17 percent literacy rate looks like, perhaps for the same reason that my students don't understand what a university library looks like.
What do you love the most about the Delta?
The people who live in the Delta have been so welcoming and appreciative of the work that Teach For America corps members do. I often run into local citizens - parents, real estate agents, bank tellers - at the grocery store, and they're always genuinely interested to know how the school year is going.
What is your neighborhood like? How is it like or unlike other neighborhoods in your area?
I live in downtown Helena, Arkansas, in a huge house with two other corps members. The place is huge, and our rent is practically nothing. New Yorkers are so jealous of our living conditions!
My neighborhood is really heterogeneous. Across the street, there are apartments where many students live; up the road, there are some public housing units; a block and half north is the Pillow Thompson House, a postcard-worthy Victorian mansion. I would say about 20 Teach For America corps members and alums live within a few blocks, so potluck and frisbee crowds never disappoint.
What's weekend life like in the Delta?
Although shopping malls and movie theaters in the Delta are few and far between, there is plenty to do on the weekend. There's a pretty dedicated Ultimate Frisbee group down the street, and for the occasional urban getaway, Memphis is just a short drive up the highway. After a week at school, though, I often find that I appreciate weekends spent reading on my front porch or playing board games with other corps members. And thankfully, if I ever run out of entertainment, Amazon.com is just as close to New York as it is to the Delta.
What is it like to teach in the Delta?
There are some extra hurdles that teachers in the Delta have to face. Aside from widespread poverty, one of the most glaring problems in the area is simply the insularity that our students have grown up with. It can be really difficult to make content relevant to students who have never understood the connection between a high-quality education and financial stability because, quite frankly, they often have seen neither.
At the same time, however, this makes teaching in the Delta feel like such a great opportunity. When I tell my students about subways and orchestras and universities, they just marvel at the sorts of things that many people take for granted. The challenge of teaching in the Delta is perhaps also the biggest opportunity: my students' lack of experience with mainstream culture makes them more curious about things that students in urban settings might find boring and commonplace.
What are some of the financial perks you notice about living in the Delta? What's it like to get by on a teacher's salary in the Delta?
Living on a teacher's salary in the Delta has given me a taste of Donald Trump's lifestyle. Okay, so maybe we don't have that much money, but it's amazing how far a little money goes here. I actually think it would be difficult to spend a hundred bucks in Helena.
Over the course of the past year, I was able to add a ton of money to my IRA, start a second savings account, and even then have enough money to afford a few weekend flights to Boston and New York. It's pretty great after being a poor college student and reluctantly buying $10 movie tickets and $4 ice cream cones.
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