Indivisible

Avoyelles High School Graduation - May 2012

If you haven't heard, Starbucks is giving away free tall brewed coffees tomorrow in honor of our beloved America!! They have launched this awesome campaign #Indivisible to celebrate the promise of our country.  Starbucks is pushing others to share thoughts through social media on your view of our country.  Through blogging, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. and to use the tag #Indivisible and Starbucks will take care of making other voices heard.  Pretty inspiring, huh?

So here is my #Indivisible: as a young woman who just finished her first year teaching in a low-income high school in rural Louisiana, the America we need to see is one in which education is taken seriously in our public schools.  Not just by the students, but beginning with the parents and the educators.  Through my experience working, not just in any public school system, but in a poor school I can attest to how often I have felt a sense of disrespect for my profession.  I have seen many teachers go in and out of one of the most important professions that anyone could ever have.  I have experienced what a lack of support and mentorship looks like from my district, not because they don't want me and other teachers to succeed, but due to a lack of money.  I am thankful for the program Teach For America providing me with the adequate resources and development to instill the skills necessary for me to be successful despite the obstacles faced at my school.  I call it a de-professionalization of teaching.  We can place blame on the low-performing students, their low socioeconomic status, or the even the zip code they were born into, but it is also a lack of responsibility on our behalf.  A responsibility as a nation to put the profession back into teaching.  Because if we the citizens of this country cannot raise the standards of teaching then how can we expect those being educated to raise the bar themselves?  With many who become teachers desperate for just a job and lacking the adequate training, it's no wonder that a third of beginning teachers leave within the first five years.  I would bet money that over half of that third leave after the first year.  It is excruciatingly hard, but exceptionally rewarding too.  In countries like China billions are spent on the development and preparation of teachers.  In other countries teachers come from a pool of the best graduates, enter high-quality preparation programs, and are evaluated based on how well the teacher develops the whole child.  It begins with respect for the profession, treating it like it matters.  We don't need a national teacher appreciation week, we need a first-class system of education, one that is indivisible against the challenges of our country's children.  

My first hour Spanish I class 

My second hour Spanish I class