We grew up in cellophane, neon cereals, tanning cathode rays. We were rinsed in pesticide, bleached with aspartame, antiseptic play.
You could tell from our soft feet We were strangers to the land And you could tell from our clean clothes that we were petrified of dirt and plants and sand
Take me out to the forest Roll me in the soil, let me smell the earth Paint my face with berries Stuff them in my mouth 'til my stomach bursts
And when the brambles shred my skin I bleed a red that shows the life within And the blackberry stains on my hands Are not from a lab, no they come from the land.
In other news, Patrick and I adopted a little rez pup on Sunday! He is adorable! He's also very healthy, especially for a stray, according to the vet. We didn't realize how young he is- He's 25 lbs right now, but apparently he's going to be 60 lbs, in all his full-grown glory. He's half German Shepard, half Australian Cattle Dog.
Patrick named him Razz, after the character Raskolnikov from Crime and Punishment. It fits him well.
So it’s been a really crazy month, but I’m going to try and start updating this blog as best I can. I know I have been in New Mexico now for over a month, but I figured I should start writing to let people know what life is like.
When I first got here, the transition was a bit difficult. I was not working and we had all sorts of moving costs –furniture was ridiculously expensive. I am living in Thoreau in a teacherage, which is housing they give to employees at the school. It is literally right next to the school (Erin walks to work). The place is really nice. It is a two bedroom place with a really big living room. Erin and I bought a futon, a dining room table and chairs, a couple bookshelves and recently a recliner chair. The chair we got from the Thoreau flea market that happens outside Family Dollar every Saturday.
Thoreau is an extremely small town. Like very small. Less than 2,000 people. We have two gas stations, two restaurants (both really small café-esque places), a family dollar store, a video rental store (Gabe’s), and a couple of mechanic places and that’s about it. The whole town is probably like 6 square miles. The town is conveniently located near the 1-40, which is nice for traveling to Gallup or Albuquerque.
Living in Thoreau is probably what I like most about moving out to New Mexico so far. The rural lifestyle I never thought would suit me, but it is such a fun town. There really is no one around….ever. It’s sweet. I go running and rarely do I even see cars pass. Not to mention we live right behind these big red rock canyons. It is pretty amazing. Everyone we know from Erin’s school or in here program lives in the teacherages, so it’s a great place to be.
Other interesting notes about Thoreau:
--Our address does not appear on anything like google maps. It’s like our house doesn’t exist.We have to give service people (like cable guys and such) pretty extensive directions to get here. Sometimes they already know the area.
--It is officially on the Navajo Reservation. This is pretty cool, but it’s weird in certain ways. If we get traffic tickets it apparently is not fully enforced. There’s an $80 fine. You can pay it if you want. If not, then nothing really happens since it isn’t state land. However, if you get a second ticket and didn’t pay the first, you go to Navajo jail for a day. This hasn’t happened to me yet, although I did get a ticket from a state officer in downtown Thoreau (which is state land).
--Everyone here has a vicious dog that barks like crazy at you when you go running or biking. Most people have them fenced in, but it’s pretty dicey. Like this one Doberman I have to pass on my bike route and I always think that if one day he gets through that fence, it could be major trouble.
--Everyone is really nice. And I’m not just saying that. The people even compared to Gallup or other towns in New Mexico are extremely friendly. This might be because more than 70% of the town are Navajos.
--Thoreau has probably the most mercurial weather I have ever experienced. It will be sunny and then all of a sudden start storming. It does make running kind of weird because you never know when the weather might change drastically. We’ve had a couple of interesting nights of intense heavy thunderstorms with flood warnings. But usually it doesn’t rain during the thunderstorms and it’s totally badass because you can see the lightning light up the sky.
--There are a lot of animals roaming around in Thoreau. Horses frequently come up to the teacherage and we see them on our runs or bike rides. Also cows or bulls from time to time. There are also a lot of rez dogs roaming around. Erin and I have talked about adopting one. Her friends Claire and Jenn have already done this. These dogs are all in pretty bad shape so there is a lot of incentive to bring one in. We’ll see though, I think we’re waiting to get fully situated first.
Anyways, I have been substitute teaching now for three weeks while I am being considered by the Gallup Independent for a job. It’s a newspaper in town. Circulation is roughly 16,000. I think the interview went well and I did a tryout newspaper article that got published, which also went well. I interviewed a couple cancer survivors; it was a pretty intense interview and article given that I’ve never covered non-sports stories before.
Erin is doing well in her teaching. It is pretty challenging. She basically teaches all day. Comes home. Plans. Goes to sleep. Then does it all over. They leave you very little free time in this profession. Plus the first year is really tough. But she’s making due. Oh and for those who don’t know she is teaching 8th grade social studies: American History. The curriculum covers Colonization through the Civil War and Reconstruction.
Erin and I usually spend weekends doing something fun. So far we’ve visited Albuquerque a couple of times, Farmington to the North, Zuni pueblo to the south and Chaco Canyon. I might do separate blog entries for some of these places, because they were very cool. Especially Chaco Canyon where there were some really cool hikes to awesome ruins from the Pueblo people who lived from approximately 900 to 1150 A.D.
Well I’m gonna wrap this blog entry up because I don’t want my first one to be too long. I will update it regularly as interesting stuff happens. I will do retroactive posts for the cool things we’ve done out here so far and try to get as many pictures in here as I can.
Last night was my FIRST of many nights staying on the rez in the Navajo Nation. I had a teacher-slumber-party in Crownpoint, NM. It is seriously gorgeous there! Hidden behind giant red rocks, a windy highway takes you through a textured, shadowed landscape to the tiny town. (If you have good eyes, you can find Crownpoint on the map of the Navajo Nation.) I stayed at my friend Liz’ “teacherage”- a special housing unit just for non-Indian teachers living there. This morning, Kayla and I went for a run, and a rez puppy followed us all around! It was the cutest dog I have ever seen! Running at 7000 feet is extremely difficult, but after training here, I’m going to be unstoppable!
Right now I’m back in Gallup with my awesome corps. Tomorrow is a community service day. Most people are painting random things around town, but Liz, Maya and I volunteered to do some desert landscaping for the town. I’m excited!
Oh my God, it’s finally over. Institute is MFing over.
First of all, thank you to everyone who supported me during this ridiculous time. I probably wouldn’t have made it without you - You know who you are.
I’m kind of in shock that this experience is over. I don’t know what to do with myself! (Well, actually some corps members gave me an idea for tonight that will probably end up at little establishment called the Vine...) But I can’t believe I’ll never see my kids again… They have come to mean SO much to me. There are a few things I’ll carry with me though: Oscar’s comment, “I’m reading books for SIXTH graders?! Awesome! My cousin- he’s 12- I’m going to show him I can read the best!” Iris’ letter, “Thank you Ms. Fleming, for making learning fun. I wish you were my teacher in 5th grade and forever.” Yanei’s smile when she got a division flashcard right for the first time in Around the World. And last, but not least, the crazily skillful drawings of Transformers that Jose Carlos made for me.
As I prepare to leave Institute, one thing I can say is that I am incredibly inspired by all of my amazing friends, colleagues, and fellow corps members who I’ve met here. There are thousands of passionate, relentless, innovative, and ridiculously talented people committed to closing the achievement gap- and some of the best of them will be people I’ve worked with who are going to Louisiana to get to work in just a couple weeks. Whenever I feel like letting up, I’ll KNOW that a friend and colleague of mine somewhere outside New Orleans or Baton Rouge will be working just as hard, if not harder to impact their students’ achievement. And when I consider the fact that I’m part of movement like that, it will drive to me to push myself even harder for my students.
So yeah, even if I wasn’t ready to part with my friends and students, I’m READY to get out of Phoenix. Besides the fact that it’s 115 degrees here every day, I just can’t wait to get to New Mexico. Even though I still don’t have a job, officially. :/ I just know that New Mexico is where I’m supposed to be right now, and I have this incredible sense of urgency to get there and start my work. Of course, my little sidetrack to Asia (in one week!) is going to be totally legit. Tomorrow morning I leave to explore Sedona and a petrified forest, then stay at my friend's place on the reservation in Crownpoint, New Mexico. Yay!
In other news, KCSB summer schedule posted! Check it: http://www.kcsb.org/schedule
After another insanely stressful week at teacher boot camp... The 'rents came to visit me this weekend. It was amazing to see them... Not just because they bought me drinks and frozen yogurt. They're totally fun to hang out with... for parents. :) Yesterday, we went to the IMAX theater and saw the movie Moon. It is incredibly great! And disturbing... But mostly great. Especially if you like Sci-Fi, but even if you don't usually. Bottom line: Parents rule. Go see Moon now.
Fun Fact: It was up to 115 degrees in Phoenix this weekend. Even at night, it's still 100. (Oh, the many connections Phoenix Institute and Hell...)
This morning my friend (another TFA corps member) came up to me and said, "Last night I went to bed at 9:30!" I looked at her- confused, jealous and suspicious, and she finished- "Granted, I woke up at 2am this morning and worked until it was time to get on the bus..."
So yeah, we actually got about the same amount of sleep last night. What kind of social experiment is this??
**I wrote the following on Sunday, but didn't have time to finish and post. Last night was 3.5 hours. Why am I here?! ...
Update on the sleep: Average last week was 5 hours/night instead of 4-5 hours, so that was an improvement. There was even one night (last Tuesday, I believe) where I got almost 6 hours! It was glorious. This coming week I’ll be transitioning from teaching math to teaching reading and word study. It’s the same (awesome) class, I’m just switching with my co-teachers on which subjects we’re doing. I’m really surprised how much I loved teaching math though. I’m kind of sad to leave it, which is ridiculous, considering I (thought I) hated math. One frustrating challenge in my class has been the inconsistent flow of kids. I get new students almost every day, while others just stop showing up. I had one new student in my small math group say, “Ms. Fleming, I’m only gonna be here for 6 days!” and another one piped up, “Oh yeah, I’m leaving on Monday to go to Mexico for the rest of the summer.” So that’s been hard, but hopefully everything will settle down a little more this week.
Fun fact: I still don’t have a job in New Mexico. In fact, I could be teaching anywhere from Gallup, down to Zuni Pueblo up to Shiprock, or over to Pueblo Pintado. Some of these locations are 3+ hours from one another. So basically I’m unemployed and homeless right now. Okay, not really. But I sort of feel that way. It’s just crazy because I’m going to be doing phone interviews while I’m at Institute, and right before I leave for Asia, then coming back and having to start work immediately. It’s gonna be intense.
Anyway, this weekend was pretty amazing. I actually had Friday off, so I just had a good time instead of planning the entire weekend! Well, Thursday night, I went to the Big Bang, a dueling piano bar in Tempe, and the New Mexicorps completely took over the bar. We started a dance party and did our cheer so that everyone was like, “Who the hell are these insane people from all over the country claiming to be teachers?!” It was legit. Then yesterday I went river tubing at Salt River! I got totally sunburned and dehydrated, but it was amazing! My friends and I particularly enjoyed the rapids, and the view was incredible. Even though you’re floating down a cold river, you’re surrounded by desert landscape, with enormous mountain-rocks, and classic Saguaro cacti along the edge. And seriously, the sky out in the desert is totally striking. Oh and last night, I watched like 7 sets of fireworks from a desert mountain outside of Phoenix. I can’t wait to get back out to New Mexico. Arizona is cool, and I’ve enjoyed exploring, but I’m not a huge fan of the city of Phoenix. So far the coolest thing I’ve found here is a drive-thru liquor store.
Anyway, back to planning until late tonight. I took a ton of awesome pictures lately, but they won’t upload onto my laptop. :( Once I figure that out though… It’s happening. For now, some pictures of Shiprock, NM, where I may end up.
A hilarious note: Teach For America is probably tracking this blog. I was in a “Diversity, Community and Achievement” session on Thursday, in which we all read and reflected on a corps member’s blog that had been straight up taken off the internet and reproduced in our materials book. It was totally embarrassing for the guy who wrote it, although his name wasn’t attached. Awesome.
This is by far the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. I admit it. But I’ve also had some of the most joyous experiences I could imagine this week. On Monday, I started teaching. KIDS. I have KIDS. I team-teach with 3 other TFA corps members, and we have the best, smartest group of 4th graders on the planet. It’s funny that they have no idea that my entire existence revolves around them right now, but they have seriously made the ridiculous lack of sleep and all the tears so far worth it.
Time to paint a picture… I have not slept more than 5 hours any night this week. Average I’d say is 4. I’m doing better than a lot of my friends who are averaging 3. The new schedule: Wake up at 5am, plan, teach until 1:30, stay at Pastor Elementary in intensive sessions until 5pm, come home, work, go to meetings/workshops/sessions/etc, plan more, work more, force myself to go to sleep at 1am. Yesterday, I started crying during my Advisory session AND my Institute Learning Team session. My friends Gwen and Sarah cried too. So did my Corps Member Advisor, Erin O. Oh, and so did my little 4th grader Yanei. She didn’t know 24 divided by 4, and heard Bernardo say, “That’s easy!!” and so she just started sobbing, right there at her desk. Of course, I gave Bernardo a consequence, and took Yanei outside to talk for a minute. She couldn’t stop crying! I seriously wanted to hug her and just start crying with her. Obviously, I didn’t do that though. I told her, “It’s okay, boys say careless things, but I believe in you, and I know you can be great at math.”
Having a classroom is awesome. I give the kids have a “DO NOW” on the board every day when they enter the class- Usually a short reflection about themselves or learning, and they have the length of one song to complete their answer before we share out. The very first day of school, I played “Burning Down the House” for them. Oddly enough, Rambo (yes, that’s the legit name of one of my co-teachers) played a Michael Jackson jam for them yesterday morning.
Today, my kids took an assessment for the math I’ve taught them this week. (That’s right, I’m teaching MATH right now- FACE.) Most of them did really well (yay!) and 85% of them mastered the material. I was so proud of them! There were 2 students who I was especially proud of for mastering it though. Yanei is one of them. Erick is the other. Erick doesn’t speak any English. So basically, I told him in Spanish that when I’m explaining math problems he needs to copy down the numbers and steps, and try his hardest to follow along. Then, if he has any questions, Jose Carlos translates for him. Well, Erick got one of the top scores on the assessment. He has made me so proud. :)
Other than that, I’ve had some amazing connections with other corps members here at Institute. There are some incredible, passionate, brilliant people here who I can’t believe I’m working with. My CMA group shared our life maps with one another, and their perseverance and positivity have inspired me so much!
I'm exhausted. I've had one major meltdown, and I know more will come before the end of Institute. I can't control most things that are affecting my life right now, from the 100+ degree weather to the amount of sleep I get. And that makes me want to smash my laptop, rip off my professional dress, use it as a pillow, and go to sleep in the hallway at times. But it will be okay, and seeing my students learning is totally driving me. What I can’t wait for: Patrick is coming from SB to visit me here TOMORROW. I haven’t seen him in like 3 weeks! Sooo excited! I’m going to make him hang out with me while I sleep and sleep and plan and plan. Sounds like a fun weekend, right?
I just started my first week of Institute, described as “teacher boot camp,” which is an extremely intensive training program to make a good teacher out of me in 5 weeks. To give you an idea, I’m sitting here in my dorm room at ASU in Phoenix, my roommate (another New Mexico corps member) is asleep as I type. I should be asleep. Seriously, why am I not asleep? Oh yeah, ‘cause I’m listening to Patrick’s last show on KCSB right now! So good!!
Anyway, this is pretty much every day: 5am- Wake up and get ready. 6am- Get on a bus to my K-8 school site. 7am-4:30pm: Attend training sessions and actually TEACH math and literacy to 4th/5th graders at Summer Success Academy at Pastor. 5-6:30pm: Work out, then eat dinner. 6:30-8pm: Work on next day’s assignments and lesson plans. 8-9pm: Attend subject-specific workshops. 9-10[m: Finish assignments and lesson plans. 10pm- Go to sleep!
Of course, it won’t always work out like that. I’ve heard horror stories of corps members staying up all night to finish their assignments and lesson plans, then having to teach the next day. So far it’s been okay though. When I call it a beast, it's not so much a wild beast as a domesticated beast (for now). Yeah, not to get TOO geeky here, but Institute actually sort of feels like Hogwarts to me. It has a prestigious-sounding name, all corps members represent their region (like the Hogwarts “houses”!)- New Mexico, Phoenix, Greater New Orleans, or South Louisiana. Anyway, that’s just my interpretation. Which I’m going to refrain from discussing with people here. Others have compared it to diverse experiences of joining the military and going to summer camp.
I will keep you all updated if I burn out and decide to be a janitor at ASU instead- Statistically, at least 10% of us will drop out during Institute.
PS- I’m excited to administer a DRA test to my students tomorrow! I'm excited to know what a DRA test is! :)
I have officially been in Gallup for 3 days. As of right now, I still don’t know if I’ll be teaching here in town or on a Native American reservation. I’ll probably find out after I finish my 5 weeks at Institute in Phoenix. Gallup totally rules. Described as “the Indian capital of the world,” there is a wealth of Native American culture here- mostly Navajo, but also Zuni, Hopi, Laguna, Apache and more. There are even traditional tribal dances every evening in the center of town during the summer. Established as a railroad town in the 1880s, it definitely still has that old-timey flavor to it.
On the not so positive side, Gallup-McKinley county is the 3rd poorest county in the whole U.S., and their economy is almost entirely dependent on selling Native American art, jewelry, and other items. I’m beginning to get a sense of some of the challenges that my students face, and in what ways I’ll encounter them. Alcoholism, HIV (on the rez, specifically,) and domestic abuse are the most serious problems out here. Also, a lot of homes don’t have access to running water, and some don’t have electricity . I’m learning to think of creative ways to help my students overcome these hardships, but right now I’m just kind of out of it. I think being exposed to their reality for the first time is still hitting me.
Back to the positive: A lot of people around town speak Navajo- I’ve heard it on the streets, in restaurants, and in the hotel where I’m currently typing from- El Rancho. The Navajo language is probably the most beautiful thing I have ever heard. It’s like underwater music. If I was one of those fools in WWII who had to decipher the code talkers, I straight up would have been possessed by that shit. The local people I’ve met here have been extremely kind and generous. They’re very willing to talk to me about their culture, and they seem interested in my coming here to teach. I talked to one man today, who works at UNM-G, who was telling me about some Navajo traditions and hardships. He stressed the importance of song and dance, which express more than emotions, and he explained to me the idea of the 4 directions. Something that stuck with me was how he said non-Indians sometimes expect him to have long hair and sport “typical traditional Indian dress.” He pointed to his long-sleeved button-up shirt and tie, and said, “I’m an Indian. THIS is my typical dress. My traditions are in my day-to-day practices and the beliefs I hold, not in what I’m wearing.” It reminded me of a class I took last quarter, where my professor discussed how society presents indigenous peoples with a choice between “the traditional lifestyle” or “modernity,” which is conceived as less-authentic.
Did I mention it’s insanely gorgeous out here? Yesterday evening, I actually had an hour of free time, so another corps member and I went running at Church Rock- The trail is on a tiny ledge on the parameter of a gigantic canyon of red rock. I felt so small! I could have run forever if not for the fact that it’s 7000 feet up here and impossible to breathe. Apart from the awesome red rocks, the sky out here is absurd. It’s bright blue and the clouds are basically tangible.
How am I personally? Keyed up and freaked out. I haven’t slept nearly enough this week, and yesterday I straight up walked into a cactus. It took like an hour to pull out all the pins, but it’s cool now.
It means girlfriend/boyfriend in Navajo slang. Since I’m hoping Patrick and I can both update this once he gets out here, I figured it was appropriate. Also, the literal translation is, ”the one that sticks up from his armpit,” describing couples who walk around with one arm over the shoulder of the other. I am the one that sticks up from Patrick's armpit.
