Teach For America: The Macroscopic Questions

Question One: What is TFA doing in my region? Today I met a staff member who serves in the Appalachian corps, working specifically in Barboursville, Kentucky, while taking masters classes at Georgetown College.  I always miss Kentucky, even as I watched a lovely sunset over New York, and it means something to me to know that the work I'm doing here - working to make sure that "One day, every child will have access to an excellent education" - ripples into my home.  Check out this video of what TFA does in Appalachia:

Question Two: How well am I contributing to TFA culture?  At the NYC Institute, we strive to build a really stellar culture, mirroring the working environment of a school where relationships and affirmation equal efficiency and performance in importance.  You have to have both.  I want to be a diligent worker bee, earning the opportunity and pay that I receive.  I also want to fulfill our four P's (Pliable, Positive, Purposeful, and Professional).  I want to embody the core values of TFA (Transformational Change, Respect/Humility, Team, Leadership, and Diversity).  I also want to achieve Personal/Professional Alignment and meet my own goals (letter writing, French study, blogging, new media skills, marathon training, reading the major prophets, exploring NYC, finding the best bagel shop in Queens).  We performed a self-assessment today on our contribution to TFA culture over the past week, and I did fine.  But I didn't do excellently, by my own standards.  I wasn't a negative...but I wasn't a positive either, at least not by my own standards.  

Here are some thoughts:

• Pay-it-forward flower vase
• Cork board in the ops office
• Where can my African Violet go?
• Eating lunch with different IMT folks whenever they're free  

I'm also very excited to begin building bus culture.  The idea came today to have current magazines/news articles/newspapers available for corps members as the load the bus.  I wonder what kinds of donations are possible...

Question Three: Why did walking into the English/Language Arts Resource Room change my entire mood?  What does my love of books and libraries mean for my major?  For the coffee shop-bookstore plan?

Question Four: What tasks do I find really fun? Writing, designing, physical labor, speech giving, creating systems, idea generation.

Question Five: What do I need to work on this summer? Figuring out how a workplace...works.  Hours make me uncomfortable.  What about bathroom breaks or those five-minutes-late-from-lunch moments?  What sort of balance do I need to strike between hard core focused work time and fun watercooler chat?  When is it okay to show my coworker a fun YouTube video or to stop what I'm doing to listen to a neat story?  As a Christian, the ultimate goal is to bring glory to God.  Is this best served in the workplace by completing excellent work or by building relationships?  The balance is especially hard on an hourly schedule with target hours.

Question Six: What a lovely sunset!

Check out...

1. This statistics website:http://fivethirtyeight.com/

2. This excerpt from Camus's "The Myth of Sisyphus": http://www.nyu.edu/classes/keefer/hell/camus.html

3. This song: "Our Generation (Hope of the World)" by John Legend and the Roots

Verse of the Day: "Do you not know?  Have you not heard?  The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.  He will not grow tired or weary, and His understanding no one can fathom." Isaiah 40:28