KC and Why I'm Here

One of the main reasons I preferred my Teach For America placement as Kansas City was because I saw the differences between the public school in KC and my suburban schools less than 30 minutes away.  It is personal. These differences are not fair. This is something fairly easy to simply state. I want you to see something though. I want you to know what my students are up against.

 [http://projects.nytimes.com/census/2010/explorer]

Historically, Troost Ave in KC was the line that separated blacks from whites. It was not something that happened "naturally." Rules, segregation, and real estate forced this on people. Black families lived to the east, while across [and on] this dividing line wealthy whites built mansions. The blue dots on this map represent blacks and the green dots represents whites (each dot is one hundred people). You can obviously see which road is Troost on the map solely by looking at the separation. Here's the thing. This map does not represent the population in the 60s. It is data from 2005-2009.

[Ibid.]

This map represents the percentage of students in private schools. See that area with dark blue? Yeah, the right edge touches Troost Ave. Everything east of Troost is light blue (showing less than 20% in private schools). This represents how: 1. many families do not have access to private schools and 2. a large chunk of white and/or wealthy families in KC do not send their children to public schools. In reality, they will do anything possible to get them out of the public school system.

This is [part of the reason] why I am teaching in Kansas City. I want to help close this gap. I want my students to receive the same education as wealthier students in private schools or my suburban public schools. It is only fair. My students deserve someone who won't give up on them when it comes to school. They can achieve so much. If we do not give up, the education system in Kansas City, and the country as a whole, will be fantastic. When asked, those families who previously sent their children to private schools will actually want to send them to public school.

My scholars deserve everything.

small talk

Okay listen, I'm such an introvert it is ridiculous.  I didn't need to tell you that. You already knew it if you've spent any time with me at all. Sometimes I try to pretend that I am extroverted because my antisocial ways annoy me at times. But really, I cannot change this quality. In all honesty, I'm okay with that (most of the time).

Why am I writing this? Well, on Sunday I move to KC for a week, then five weeks in Los Angeles. I have to meet hundreds of new people. This means small talk. Lots of painful small talk. Sure, I'm excited to meet them [some of them, anyway]. We will have the same mission of bringing excellent education to students in KC for the next two years. That is awesome. And hopefully I will become great friends with some of them as well. I'm pumped about this. However, I am not looking forward to these weeks of: What's your name? Where are you from? What school did you go to? What is your subject placement? Why did you join TFA? Yadda yadda yadda. Can't we just jump into some real stuff? I am going to be so, accidentally, rude to some people because I just don't care for small talk. Sorry, I love when people get to be real with one another.

It is weird how these next six weeks are going to be the most draining of my life and will require relentless work, yet the thing I'm not looking forward to is professional small talk. Dang. I'm so socially awkward. But hey, at least I'm not worrying about the whole teaching thing (right now, anyway).