On the Internship

Top Three Favorite Moments:

1. When Jazz and JaColbie, the two students I briefly tutored in mathematics for ACT Prep., said that I explained things in ways that they had never heard before, and that what I was teaching them was so much easier than what they’d learned during the school year.
2. When we drove down Broad Street in Greenwood. Imagine a small town street in the 1980s with ramshackle houses ten years too late for a paint job, full of people walking and sitting on porches and loitering in their cars. There was a man on his porch who pointed at me and followed me with his finger, an incredulous look on his face, when we drove by in the University van.
   
3. Dinner with the Black family after church.

Least Favorite Moment:

1. When my alarm did not go off in the morning and I missed the bus to summer school. I went to work with Ben at the School of Education instead, but I was bummed out for a while.

Comments:

The first MTC member I met was Molly Goldwasser, a second-year teacher and former Summer Intern, and one of the first things she told me was that Ben is the easiest boss to have. She may be right. Working for Ben is a breeze and there’s lots of opportunity for relaxation, especially because Ben likes to take long lunch breaks most days.
Working at the summer school is also a lot of fun. This summer’s principal, Joe Sweeney, became somewhat of a hero to all the interns who worked for him. It was a lot of fun. The summer school is a slightly higher-stress job, but isn’t anything to be afraid of.
A unique feature of this Internship is living with the people you are supporting. As much as we are a support staff for the program, we are a support staff for the teachers in that program. A lot of them are interested in what interns do, and want a break from “teacher-talk.” When they’re not teaching or lesson-planning, they want a fun thing to do and someone to do it with.

Advice for Prospective Interns:

• Give Ben plenty of warning about your incoming travel plans, times, and locations.
• Bring a good bit of cash/debit with you coming into the summer. Depending on what program you’re coming through (college funded, MTC funded, or other), you may not get your first check until three weeks into the summer.
• Keep in mind how much you will need to spend on food. Be a thrifty shopper.
• Do not be afraid to ask teachers, other interns, Ben, or anyone else you may befriend for rides to stores, especially when it’s a matter of groceries. There may be times in life when you don’t want to ask too much of people, but asking for help getting food isn’t one of those times.
• Listen more than you talk.
• Be honest with Ben. He likes feedback.
• Try to make friends with as many teachers as possible. If you have time, see if they need help with anything that they’re working on. They have a way busier schedule than you.
• Read, read, read. Read about Mississippi, about the history of the South, read Faulkner, read the news, read about civil rights, read about education—whatever piques your interest; immerse yourself in issues of Mississippi and the South while you are there.
• Hang out with the other interns; y’all probably have a lot in common.
• Don’t go out to eat every night, unless you really can afford to this. Think, dinner costs at least $10 almost everywhere, and you need to have money to buy other food for different times during the day and still have some cash to go do other things.
• Remember: blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

My Project

This summer I really had two projects aside from my work at the summer school. I tinkered for many hours with the MTC WikiSite, which may in time become the main website for the program. I also work on a unit of lesson plans for the incorporation of some print media into the English II (tenth grade) classroom. I must say that I enjoyed my wiki work more than my lesson plans. After I give my presentation tomorrow, I will post my lesson plans on the Lesson Plan Wiki and show y’all.

Quick Update, Quickly Written

I ought to post for y’all. I promise that my lack of digital presence hasn’t been because of laziness. I haven’t been typing much recently, but I have been reading and writing in my notebooks. I finished C. S. Lewis’s Problem of Pain, am almost done with Don Quixote, am still slowly enjoying Jeremiah, and I this week started The Souls of Black Folk and A Generation of Materialism. I will set down the last one when I return to New York, and probably pick up Jacob Klein’s book on Greek mathematics in its stead, but I’m sure I won’t finish it before I start next semester. Blah, blah. What was I going to post about? Oh yeah, some thoughts on the Internship.

I am working on a list of things to tell prospective Summer Interns, something generally applicable and relevant. At the same time, I can guess that the Internship will not look the same next year. In 2007, there was a sole MTC Intern. This summer there were eight of us. I don’t imagine that the number will continue to rise, but I do assume that there will continue to be more than one, especially if Amherst College continues its community service funding programs. This summer was a trial run for the larger crowd. On a personal level, I consider it a success, but its success or failure was never really a question. It seems that, as a trial run, it’s a matter of optimizing the experience: giving the most to the students who want to devote their summers, streamlining the schedule and costs, and making the most of the extra labor and minds at work on the greater MTC project. Ben Guest has obviously done a more than adequate job catering to us, having arranged for us a schedule of speakers and given us a raw look at the life and times of the first-year teachers. Concerning scheduling, I think that next year will have the benefit of less confusion, assuming Ben will continue to reap the benefits of Google’s social empire. But I expect that most changed next summer will be the utilization of those Intern’s skills. Though I have personally gained a precious mass of experience, I haven’t really worked very hard; I could have been worked harder for the benefit of the program. There were long periods of time when I would mentally or corporally wander around, as my winemaker friend in New York would sometimes say of me, “like a little lost waif.” Now I know that there are others among the Elite Eight who at this point would frown and say that they are busy enough, so I must make it clear that I speak only for myself here. There were some moments, especially at the summer school, when it felt like three Interns were too many in one place, let alone eight. I expect that the number of Interns wasn’t as much of a problem as the lack of experience managing such a large group of more or less free labor. What kind of projects do you give them—long or short? Do you send more than one to work on the same thing? What if they get it done quickly? What next?
On the note of projects, I think daily/weekly projects are a much better use of my clerical and adjutantial skills than anything larger. To have multifarious assignments each day, regardless of whether they’re different or the same each day, is much easier for me to manage than to have an indefinite amount of time to do a work of indefinite size. But this requires more work, or at least more time and watchfulness, on the part of the employer to “manage” me and continually supply me with tasks.
With this in mind, I’ll be writing up a list of likes and dislikes, and a list of unexpected (not necessarily unpleasant) occurrences and occasions about which prospective Interns would want to be forewarned. Maybe tomorrow?
I’m off to read some more Quixote, and maybe I’ll see The Dark Knight tonight? If I don’t see it tonight, I might not see it in theaters ever. Oh well. Toodles.

Busy Weekend

This was a busy weekend. On Friday Ben took Matt and I to Holly Springs to visit the summer school. It was more of a hangout-day than a workday. We went out to Phillips’ Grocery by the tracks, and I had the Fill-up Burger. Scrumptious and deadly: it was a quarter-pound burger with ham, bacon, American cheese, onions, lettuce, and tomatoes. If I live in Mississippi, I need to live far away from Ben, because otherwise we’ll go out for fatty burgers, pricey sushi, and greasy (grē'·zē, like easy) soul food every day.
After “work” I went to play volleyball with the teachers for a few hours again. I think my team lost more than it won, but it was good to get out in the sun.
After volleyball a crowd of us went to some generic Mexican restaurant for a double-birthday party. It was a strange experience, a bit like being at a large wedding where you really only know the bride and groom, but are expected to sit and chat with their relatives about your life. It was fun, though, and the food was good.
On Saturday, Ben arranged for a trip to the Delta with Ashley Johnson, who spoke to us earlier in the week about her time spent in the Teacher Corps (sounds like a prison). We visited Greenwood, where she taught middle school students while she was in the program, and also Money, where Emmett Till was brutally lynched in the 1950s. The trip was what I call “an India experience,” meaning a brush with another world whose poverty and social dynamic I had previously not imagined. Like my first trip to India, when people warned me about how shocking some scenes would be beforehand, I was forewarned as we went into Greenwood that it would be quite amazing to see some of the “houses” in the poor, black neighborhoods; it was the same kind of pseudo-preparation. Seeing one of those old houses is not as amazing as seeing the houses with people in and around them. Seeing a decrepit street is one thing, but seeing the gang members and children who live there is another. There were two effects of the trip to Greenwood: amazement and a strong desire to live there. This surely qualifies it as “an India experience” for me.
Money was an intriguing stop. We saw the store where Emmett Till supposedly wolf-whistled at a white woman. The people in Money do not talk about those events very often. They almost never call Emmett by name if they mean to refer to him.
Then we went out to eat, again, at the Crown Restaurant in Indianola. It was fabulous. I took Ben’s recommendation and ordered the catfish allison. Best fish I’ve ever had in my life, perhaps bested only by my father’s buttery tilapia. I have secretly asked Ben, should I be admitted into the Teacher Corps, to make sure my placement is in Indianola—far enough away from him to not eat out every day, but close enough to the Crown to eat out well. I also learned that caramel and cream cheese go quite well together on a cracker.
Sunday was filled with excitement, too. Latisha rented a car for the weekend, and decided to visit the mother of one of the summer school students at their home church in Red Banks. We dropped off Christine and her friend Julie (no, Ben, her name isn’t Jess) in Holly Springs so they could tour the town and go to mass. Then Tish and I visited Pleasant Grove Missionary Baptist Church. It was a nice place. Mrs. Lester, the mother of the summer school student, told us that most of the church is part of one very large, very extended family. I liked it. Praise the Lord. She very graciously bought us each a plate of lunch, soul food, and sent us on our way. Tish and I picked up Christine and Julie and drove to Memphis, Tennessee. We quickly visited the National Civil Rights Museum, which was a bit more intense than I would have wanted; I couldn’t help but cry half-way through. I felt a bit heavy for the rest of the day. After that we quickly drove Julie to the airport, stopped by the Apple Store to make Tish’s appointment at the Genius Bar, and scooted home.
I was pooped by Sunday night. I’m still pooped now. Back to work on the Wiki.

"My Girls"

Earlier this week the Select Seven had the joy of meeting with Ashley Johnson, an alumna of the MTC. For her placement in the program, she taught sciences at Greenwood Middle School. Ben invited her to speak with us for two reasons: (1) to understand Greenwood is to understand the Delta; and (2) Ms. Johnson is a fabulous speaker. Very down-to-earth.
For anyone who doesn’t know the history of Greenwood, and the nearby town called Money, where Emmet Till was mutilated and killed in 1955, I recommend reading up on it. I’m not going to reiterate it here.
One thing that I cannot get out of my mind is a phrase that Ms. Johnson used repeatedly: “my girls.” Thinking about it for a bit I noticed retrospectively that almost all of the teachers talk this way. The students are their students. They belong to them. But moreover, especially in Ms. Johnson’s way of speaking, the students are not merely students. They’re people, not products or customers. I got a sense that Ms. Johnson had a lot of love for the young teens that she served in Greenwood.
Part of her presentation was a little bit darker, because she was talking about where her girls came from, and what they were exposed to on their walk back home after school. She used to get so angry at the older guys who, after dropping out of school, would hang out on all the street corners near the middle school. They were 18 and 19 years old, and these young girls had to walk by them everyday. Violent rape is not as much of a concern as plain manipulation (so yet even that is called “statutory”).
But on a brighter note, she talked about how these young guys can be turned around if someone gives them something to do. She recalled an election where the people had to vote a second time because of some suspicious ballots in the first vote. The one candidate, who lost the first time, was a black woman, and the other candidate was accused of using names of dead people to win the vote. On the second vote, the leaders in the black community in Greenwood rallied together to get “those on the south side of the river” to show up for the vote. These boys on the street corner turned from ruffians into community activists, handing out flyers and escorting people to the voting precinct. All they needed was a little bit of direction, a purpose, and they suddenly had a different impact on the community.
More on that later. Time for work.

Redirect to Older Post

I would like to redirect your attention to a “hot topic” post from last week. I received a new comment today that some may be interested in replying to.

Mr. Barnes

Last Thursday Reggie Barnes spoke with all the first-year teachers and the Select Seven (the Elite Eight sans Elise, who has returned to Massachusetts to finish out her summer with another scheduled internship). It will be difficult to recall all of his various jobs and accomplishments, but now he works as an educational consultant after being the Superintendent of the West Tallahatchie School District among other things. During his work as the Superintendent, he was featured in the HBO documentary LaLee’s Kin, which gives an acute and terrible look into the deplorable conditions (of education, of society) in the Mississippi Delta. Mr. Barnes has seen it all, or a lot of it. What is the it that I mean? The mess of poverty and its effect on all aspects of the public education system. His sensitivity to, and his profound knowledge of, the problems makes him a long-time friend to the Mississippi Teacher Corps, whose participants he says bring “culture” into the Delta.
This word culture especially fascinated me. Mr. Barnes says I could bring culture to the students. What do I have to offer? I’m a little white guy from New York. I am different—look different, have a different vernacular, different accent, curious mannerisms, strange pastimes and hobbies (“What did you do last Friday night?”—“Read some Don Quixote.”), and an ordinary-Gary sense of style. Is this what Reggie means? I thought about it a little bit more. When someone shows the students a photograph of the Parthenon or Big Ben or Vatican City, I can say that I was there. I traveled to Greece, England, Rome twice, India three times, and all over the United States. I suppose that’s groovy, as a sideshow. What else? I’ve read some of the greatest literature and philosophy this world has ever seen. I know people at every corner of the earth. I’ve seen miracles. I suppose these are the things Mr. Barnes wants people to bring to Mississippi.
I acknowledge that I am “cultured” in a way that may be desired, but I question what the effect of such culture is. Some, including MTC’s Chimaobi Amutah, don’t seem to think this culture is really so valuable. I quote Mr. Amutah with all license because he wrote this as a response to one of my posts:

Quite honestly, I feel that MTC's ranks should be filled with Blacks FROM Mississippi. The rest of us should go back from whence we came and stop trying to force immediate, drastic change on a culture, people, and place that is not our own. White Man's Burden, Take 2. [sic. I think he meant to link this.] I feel that if White people are truly interested in ending (or decreasing the existence of) racism, educational inequality, and poverty in this nation then their quarrel should be with other Whites who are players in this system, big or small. People need to organize and educate folks in Ridgeland and Oxford just as much as Holly Springs or Rolling Fork.

I must say that I disagree strongly with Mr. Amutah on this point, but I don’t completely agree with Mr. Barnes’s appeal to the cultural contribution of us non-Mississippians either. Mr. Amutah wants black locals in the black Delta schools, ideally at least. Mr. Barnes wants, for lack of a better term, foreigners. Mr. Amutah’s position will, I argue, ultimately re-segregate the system, ignore the problem of racism and educational inequity, and perpetuate the current conditions. Mr. Barnes’s position, however, doesn’t seem to offer much more benefit to me: the foreigners will occupy the territory, preach in their own language, and (mostly) leave in two years. The assumption is that our peculiarities will translate readily into the students’ language and be seen as something desirable, something to inspire them to pursue a similar experience. But what if it doesn’t translate? What if my cultural invasion is rejected? Moreover, how can I be so sure that what I’ve got is worth giving? There are only a few things in my life that I would want someone else to take, if they even can be taken: my faith in God, my hope in Christ, and my love for my neighbors. My travels and reading and knowledge have no comparison in substance to these three things (despite what Quixote may suggest), at least not when they are considered apart from them.
Here’s the bottom line. I’m not convinced that education gets people out of real poverty, even if it does give them a higher-paying job and the sense to not get into trouble with the law.

That was a huge digression. Back to Mr. Barnes. He was a brilliant speaker. He reminded me of my Latin teacher from high school, Mr. Kunz. They are both gruff and forceful, in a good way. They both speak softly, and then start yelling when they want to make a point. Yelling isn’t the right word. Bellowing? Hollering? No, roaring is probably more appropriate. Reggie has a way of commanding the room’s attention with the volume and intonation of his voice. He’s also very articulate. Speaking loud and fast keeps an audience on their toes and makes the slower, emphasized phrases all the more dramatic. If Mr. Barnes, or Mr. Kunz, told me to vote for him in the next presidential race, I would probably nod my head Yes as a knee-jerk reaction to his oratorical power.
His speech was mostly a rolling list of things to do and not do when teaching at a school in the Delta. Afterward, the Select Seven had an interview with him, and he shared the story of his younger years during the Civil Rights Movement. Especially fascinating was the rage he experienced during high school. A lot of times we see or read a story of violence among teenagers and think that they must have something so fundamentally twisted about them, that their parents are evil or negligent, and that they will always be violent. Mr. Barnes’s story goes against those assumptions. He said that he became a fighter and joined a gang for a few years in high school after Dr. King was assassinated, and he does not know why precisely. And then, he stopped. He saw the damage he could do and he turned away. What was it that did it for him? Did he see something different in one of his teachers? Was it a cultural influence? Or was it simply the unexplainable grace of God?

No More Beard

Yesterday I looked like Jesus. I shaved. Now I look like Michael Jackson. Alas.