overwhelmed much?

It's day one of Institute, and things are happening.

My official summer placement is indeed at the high school, where I will be teaching ninth grade English alongside three other corps members: a guy from Chicago corps, a girl from Baltimore, and another girl from Los Angeles. We started classes today with two sessions of IPD (Instructional Planning and Delivery – our crash course in navigating standards and writing objectives, lesson plans, and assessments), and then broke off into our smaller groups of sixteen (four cohorts like mine – three English, one Algebra) to get a crash course in Institute scheduling and to familiarize ourselves with our SAPs, essentially binders of our teaching objectives for the summer. We have goals and objectives laid out for us, and the assessments are set in stone, but we’re responsible for all the actual lesson planning and all of the teaching. It’s really daunting to realize that this isn’t some guinea pig class; we are expected to teach these kids to master these objectives in the next month. It’s a massive responsibility. It’s also happening very fast; our first lesson plans are due Thursday. We get an hourlong lesson in writing them tomorrow in IPD, and then we are more or less on our own.

I should mention that The Program is acronym-crazy. On a weekly, if not daily basis, I am in contact with my FA, my PD, my CMA, and my other CMs. We look at documents like SAPs and IEPs. We take classes like IPD, CMC, and DCA. Today I caught myself writing my very first "SWBAT." This particular acronym means “Student Will Be Able To,” and is used to begin most lesson and unit objectives. I felt like a really-and-truly teacher.

We were only in session until 2 today, being as it’s a national holiday or whatnot. Already exhausted, I seized the opportunity to take a super-patriotic two-hour nap, then hooked up my internets. I plan to draft my application essays and then be in bed by a reasonable hour. My plan is to be in the shower at 5 every morning. So far, so good.

In more pedestrian concerns: I am in food heaven here. LMU was a really valuable experience, in terms of providing contrast. This morning I had strawberries, three kinds of melon, half a grapefruit, really good eggs, and mediocre potatoes. Dinner was pasta, steamed vegetables, salad, more melon, garlic bread, and a creamsicle. It sounds like a lot, but you have to remember: there are twelve hours between breakfast and dinner, interrupted only by an apple and a pb & j.