MTC Monthly Update
News Update
The Mississippi Teacher Corps Class of 2006 is finished (MTC designates each class by the year entered). The '06ers presented their final portfolios last month and will graduate with a Master's Degree in Education this Saturday. You can view the portfolios here. You can see photos of the final day here.
Each year MTC presents awards to the graduating class. This year's award list:
Academic Achievement: Jeremy Fiel
Class Speaker: Jon Zarandona
Outstanding Portfolio: Stephen Scriber
Mullins Award (named after MTC co-creator Andy Mullins, this award is voted on by the class and given to the participant who best represents the values and ideals of the Mississippi Teacher Corps): Jeremy Fiel
Profile of the Month is of second-year Robin Lewis, a science teacher in Laurel, MS.
Alumni Profile of the Month is of Kathleen Sullivan. Kathleen, MTC Class of 1995, taught English at Yazoo City High School in Yazoo City, MS, and is currently the Executive Director of the Boston Collegiate Charter School.
Be sure to check out the MTC/YouTube Page. We've got a several new videos up, including Part One of the MTC 2007 Intern Film. We've also been adding videos to on our SmugMug page, which has better quality than YouTube.
One of our first-years, Anna Morrison, has recently published two pieces on her time in the Delta:
Teaching 'Things Fall Apart':
The complaints began the moment I started passing out copies of the novel "Things Fall Apart" to the 17 and 18-year-olds of my English IV classroom. "What this book is?" moaned LaJohn, a big football player who always nabs a seat in the back of the room. J.T. was even more pointed when he turned to Tierra, shook his book in the air and said, "Man, she ain't gonna make us read this whole book!"
Down in the Delta:
Driving down Route 61 into the Mississippi Delta I notice the expanse of cotton and soyabeans unfolding all around me. Thousands of years of flooding across this alluvial plain has flattened the land to an unbelievable degree. It's hard to describe just how powerful the effect is: low-lying fields seem to stretch for miles in every direction. Growing up in the Midwest, I am accustomed to this sort of openness. But I am still at a loss for words to describe the Delta's sweeping vistas.
On to the blogs:
Each graduating member of the Class of 2006 has posted a reflection about his or her time in the Teacher Corps. I've posted excerpts and a link to each on my blog.
Karl goes to the laundromat:
As our conversation wraps up, she says, "I got to go home and cook supper now. I don't like doing it, but nobody else is goin' to." I tell her that I hope it turns out well and the food tastes good. She waves her hand and says, "Oh, he eats pretty much whatever I cook. He's just like that. That's how I got so big, because when you be cookin' so much like that, you got to taste the food. When you always around food, you just get big."
With those words hanging in the air, she opens only one of the two doors and gracefully exits with her laundry bags or any part of her massive body touching neither door or frame or anything but the sunshine.
Ruth, an alumna of the program, has photos up.
Lisa has three weeks left:
Three weeks before the end of the two years, I step out of the house in Leland into the night, and it's all lavender and lightning. The combination cuts beautifully through my haze of questions and doubts. Near the end of a personal era, for lack of better terminology- it feels so wrong to call this a phase because it has had such impact on my character and my plans- every sensation is stronger, and living is somehow ultra-nuanced. Maybe I just hold on.
Michael has a day in the life, starting with the moment school lets out:
Four o'clock. Out to duty. Four-fifteen. Back to the classroom for tutoring.
Anna had a moment.
Angela gave her students a fairly common logic puzzle. The answers she received were anything but common.
All of the first-years have posted advice for the incoming class:
Chimaobi writes:
I bequeath whatever energy I have left. You're going to need it. Lots of its. When I was a senior in college last year Ben told me that teaching in Mississippi would be the hardest thing that I've ever done in my life. I thought he was joking. I mean, I've survived life in a Nigerian dictatorship, shootouts in my hometown, the *worst* high school in New Jersey, and the most elitist, gag-inducing few square miles in the world... what could be so rough about Mississippi? I had no idea...
Michelle's advice has caused quite a commotion.
Lisa writes:
The most important thing you need to know is that you are starting, quite possibly, the most challenging, frustrating, two years of your life. You are also starting what could be the most rewarding two years of your life.
Robert starts with:
First and foremost, you are crazy. Not few eggs short of an omelette crazy. We're talking about Hunter S. Thompson tripping on LSD in the Arizona desert crazy. Hillary Clinton remaining in the Democratic primary, despite not having a snowball's chance in the 5th circle of hell according the delegate count crazy. Starting a petition to get Stokely Carmichael's birthday made a national holiday in Neshoba County crazy. Mike Tyson crazy.
Dani says:
MTC has been a wonderful experience for me so far, and I am going to try to give some suggestions that will help the first years think the same...
Finally, as one class leaves, another class begins. The MTC Class of 2008 has been finalized. We received over 270 applications for 27 spots. Photos and profiles of the new class will go up next month (the first day of summer training is June 3rd). In the meantime, several of the incoming first-years and interns (we currently have one spring intern and we will have eight summer interns) have started keeping blogs:
Kate
Karl
Matt (summer intern)
Katie (spring intern)
My Groups
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Mississippi Teacher Corps Updated: May 9, 2008
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Peace Corps Updated: Nov 28, 2007
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Mississippi Teacher Corps (host) Updated: May 15, 2007
