May 7, 2014

Educator? Student?

Meghan Mangrum

I never thought of myself as an educator. Of the past 23 years, I have been an official student for at least 17 of them. I love sitting in class, I love reading, I love documentaries and weird Discover Channel shows and TedxTalks. In college, I adored being a student. I listened to my professors teach me to be a journalist, I listened to my supervisors, I tried to figure things out and focus on being confident in the things I knew.

Along the way, I began to lead people. I became a reporter – I provided facts and information to people and sometimes they learned something. I became an editor at my student paper – I supervised several news correspondents and helped them write better stories and figure out how to track down sources and navigate the system. I answered phone calls from incoming freshmen, frantically trying to find…

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March 3, 2014

1000 Hours.

Today I reached 1,000 hours towards my AmeriCorps requirement of 1700 hours over the course of my term of service. According to the Corporation for National and Community Service’s website, “Since the program’s founding in 1994, more than 800,000 AmeriCorps members have contributed more than 1 billion hours in service across America.”

I have earned by 1000 hours since last September. 1000 hours or 41 days or 60,000 minutes.

One thousand hours spent working at a large Florida high school, 1000 hours spent tutoring students in English, math, science and geography, 1000 hours spent maintaining order in a classroom or balancing the fine line between helpful friend and authoritative foe, 1000 hours spent listening to weird jokes and learning teenager slang, 1000 hours spent checking smartphones and writing passes and arguing about missing homework, 1000 hours spent listening to students frustrations with parents, relationships and money, 1000 hours spent at a school that has lost several students this year, 1000 hours spent with kids who have lost several friends, 1000 hours spent at a school whose football team was almost state champions, 1000 hours spent with 200 students every day.

One thousand hours spent serving the immigrant population of Apopka, 1000 hours spent teaching GED classes, 1000 spent re-learning the difference between demonstrative and relative pronouns, 1000 hour spent re-learning how to multiple fractions and do long division by hand, 1000 hours spent learning bits and pieces of broken Spanish, 1000 hours of listening to the stories of young migrant workers and impoverished senior citizens, 1000 hours spent providing snacks and coloring pages to children whose parents came to learn.

One thousand hours spent with two little boys whose parents couldn’t help them with their homework, 1000 hours spent watching the boys wiggle and lose teeth and improve their reading levels, 1000 hours spent rushing from point A to point B with a pit-stop at point D, 1000 hours spent out of the house, practically living out of my car, 1000 hours spent stressed and happy, 1000 hours spent with new friends and good people, 1000 hours spent learning boundaries, 1000 hours spent improving my skill set and discovering new abilities, 1000 hours spent re-thinking choices, 1000 hours spent learning new cultures and new perspectives, 1000 hours spent engaged with the world, 1000 hours spent serving, 1000 hours spent “tackling pressing problems,” 1000 hours spent making a difference.

February 24, 2014

An Average Day in the Life of (this) AmeriCorps Member

AmeriCorps members have long days. Some longer than others depending on where you serve. At Apopka’s NDMVA site, members serve in various locations including local high schools, middle schools, elementary schools, colleges and a domestic violence shelter. Though my schedule varies slightly at the high school and for special events – this is a glimpse at my longer days, a typical Tuesday or Thursday.

 6:00 am –  Leave my house. Since AmeriCorps stipends won’t get you rich, I live with my parents. Pro: I don’t pay rent. Con: I live 45 minutes away from Apopka.

7:00 am – Arrive at Apopka High School.

7:15 am – The school day begins. I serve in a success classroom for freshman. We have six periods a day  containing approximately 200 students. They have life skill lessons once a week and work in a computer lab on Mondays. Three days a week they have independent study at which point I tutor them in a wide range of subjects: anything they need help with.

8:14 am – Second Period

9:10 am – Third Period. My classroom’s planning/free period time. On Fridays, I volunteer in Apopka High’s food pantry, The Darter’s Nest. Typically I assist in stocking the shelves and putting together bags of food for students who might otherwise go hungry over the weekend.

10:00 am – Lunch. (This is my last break for the rest of the school day).

10: 25 am – On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays I meet one-on-one with a student for 15 minutes of math tutoring.

10:31 am – Fourth Period.

11:27 am – Fifth Period.

12:23 pm – Sixth Period.

1:19 pm – Seventh Period.

1:45 pm – On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays I meet one-on-one with my second student of the day for 15 minutes of math tutoring.

2:10 pm – The regular school day ends and after-school tutoring begins. A core group of students meet with me for 1.5 hours four days a week for tutoring mainly in their AP Human Geography class.

3:30 pm – Tutoring ends. This is generally time for me to eat (I have to pack two meals a day to save on the cost of being a snacker) and drive to the Hope Community Center for the second-half of my day.

4:30 pm – Twice a week, I tutor a first grader whose parents are unable to assist him with his homework due to language barriers.

5:30 pm – Tutoring ends. Since I live so far from work, I hang out during my short break at the Hope Community Center, which oftentimes means I end up helping out with something or preparing for my evening GED class.

6:00 pm – Preparation for GED class (heating up and serving food, organizing materials, setting up the room, etc. alongside other volunteers).

6:30 pm – GED class begins. I have a group of 8 students on approximately the same level. We work on both language and math, and I assist them in working through concepts, checking their work, etc.

8:30 pm – GED class ends.

9:30 pm – I finally arrive home.

January 15, 2014

Hard Times in 5th Period

One of my students lost a friend in a car crash this week. He wasn’t one of mine and didn’t go to our school, so I didn’t know about it until she showed me the news article. Sitting in class, staring at the computer screen, another one of her friends tried to cheer her up by showing her cute pictures from the internet.

“It’s not fair,” she told me, fidgeting and wringing her hands. It was hard to meet her eyes as I was reminded of my own friend I lost when we were younger. Both nineteen. My friend was killed along with his father and two brothers, hers was killed because he wasn’t wearing a seatbelt.

“How did you deal with it?” her friend asked. Of all the things my students say and all the weird things they ask, how could I answer this?

High schoolers are no strangers to life experiences – sex, drugs, death. Many of our students have faced quite a bit, but many haven’t. This student in particular has already had a life full of challenges, she is no stranger to them, however she is still a teenager. She’s fifteen. I was nineteen when my friend was killed – four years ago and it has made quite a difference.

“I was sad and I cried, I spent time with my friends and we talked about it,” I told them. “I can’t really remember the first few days after though. There are still songs that remind me.”

I didn’t have words of wisdom for these two. I couldn’t tell them that no, young people dying is not fair. I told them it happens. I told them unfortunately it was a part of life – you grow older, you lose people you love. I can’t tell them it’s fair or not fair. I can’t tell them that I think it sucks. I can’t tell them that it is always hard.

Why do some people leave you in a blink of an eye? Why do kids die while some grow older than the hills? Why do some people stew in their sins for years and others make one fatal mistake? Why do the drunk drivers live and families die?

“Maybe if you didn’t love people, it wouldn’t hurt so much,” one of the girls said.

I told her that I disagreed. People die. You will lose the ones you love or they will lose you – as humans with limited clocks, this is our fate. I shared a quote with them though, one that has shaped my own grief in my lifetime.

In his autobiography, The Heart and the Fist, Eric Greitens, a Navy Seal, writes about a morning when he was jogging and encountered a memorial with names of fallen friends on it. After pausing to reflect with another runner, they moved on.

“We ran in quiet for a while, both of us humbled by our good fortune to have known worthy people and to have loved them. Both of us humbled by the incredibly gift of continued life.”

We are lucky to know good people and we are lucky to love. That first death you experience scars you. It shakes you awake and introduces you to a tougher world. Everyone enters it one day. Though I don’t necessarily believe that everything happens for a reason, I know that lessons can be learned from these experiences.

Hold on to the ones you love. Your and their days are numbered. Live each day the best you can. Honor them with your memories and by living as best a life as you can. Cherish those moments.

We can’t stop our students from learning the world. They will grow up, some already have. I wish I could tell them I had all the answers; that it was easier as an adult – but it’s not. I can listen and pat their shoulders and tell them, “I know it sucks. I know. I lost someone too.” And maybe eventually we’ll understand.

November 6, 2013

Scenes from a GED Class

Two elderly black women sit together with short pencils and workbooks and packets spread in front of them. One woman has a composition book, where she writes notes in tiny, neat handwriting – conserving space, documenting things she should remember. They talk and laugh with a Hispanic man who could be their grandson and me, their tutor, young enough to be their granddaughter.

They ask tentative questions about pronouns and verb tenses, participles and how to use semi-colons. Sometimes relearning with them, I explain and give examples and the light slowly shines brighter in their eyes. Pronouns are especially difficult. These women, who have spoken this language their entire lives and have used pronouns for just as long, have a rough time differentiating between demonstrative and personal, reflexive and reflective, he/she/themselves/they/who.

The woman with the composition book takes deliberate notes and slowly, slowly answers more and more questions on her own – completing her packet, page by page. When she hands it over to me to check her answers, she averts her eyes. #1 – correct. #2 – correct. #3…#4…#5… When I joke, “You cheated, didn’t you?” The woman laughs nervously and smiles a confident smile of understanding. She hugs me. With a catch in her throat and tears in my own eyes, she thanks me. Thank you for helping me understand. Thank you for making this make sense. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

***

The same women ask me questions – where do you live, how old are you, where did you go to high school, to college. We talk about our families. The young man tells us about moving to the United States from Mexico when he was eight years old. He tells us about the dog who attacked him in Mexico and left scars on the back of his head. He tells us about leaving high school at sixteen – “To go to work. You have to help. You have to feed your families. To pay bills, you know?”

And the women – Pauline is seventy-five and the other, Gloria, is sixty. I would have guessed much younger.

Pauline lived in England for many years. She raised three children. Her youngest – “her baby” – passed away already. All of them went to college. Seventy-five years old and she needs her GED. To keep her busy. To keep her learning. For her pride. Because society puts such a value on education and degrees and certificates and pieces of paper that she does not feel accomplished without her education.

“I have to keep learning, keep going or it’s over.”

Gloria operated heavy machinery for years and years and years. Her wrist is sometimes wrapped, tight and painful – her doctor says she might have arthritis. She raised five children. Five children with degrees and diplomas. Her grandson teases her and taunts her. He is thirteen and tells his grandmother that he will have his diploma before her.

“I have to beat him,” Gloria said.

Gloria explains that she feels ashamed that she doesn’t have her high school education. A woman who has worked, doing hard manual labor for her entire life and raised five children is ashamed.

She tells the three of us, “My daughter told me that she admires me.”

I agree.

***

One of the nuns who founded our community center rushes into the room during GED class one night. Students are spread out at round tables, huddled over their workbooks and packets, learning how to construct sentences or multiply fractions. Some are old, many are younger than you might guess. Some barely speak English. I sit at a table with three young Hispanic women, one of them pregnant, a boy in first grade and a young Hispanic man.

The sister is visibly excited. She greets students, asks them how their class is going. Then she makes an announcement to the class. There was a march and a rally downtown that afternoon. People rallied in support of immigration reform – hundreds marched and a select few sat in the middle of the road, to block traffic, to draw attention. Civil disobedience. The sister was moved, she was excited. She tells the students about watching people you know be arrested, how as U.S. citizens you can do that – you can participate in civil disobedience and be arrested without the greater worry of being sent away forever.

A woman at my table whispers, “They did that for us.” Her whisper grows louder and she pauses, places her pen down and holds her pregnant stomach. “They did that for us.”

The students speak in Spanish for a few moments. Most are there to earn their GED so they will qualify for DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). So that they will have a chance at getting a job, getting their education and will move one step down the long road to citizenship. A chance without worry of being deported.

“They did that for us,” she says again. “That is why I am doing this. For a chance.”

October 21, 2013

Thoughts on high school, adolescence and death

Last week, University High School – my alma mater and the school where my younger sister is currently a junior – mourned the death of one of its own. Unfortunately, death seems commonplace in high schools today. Apopka High School, where I am serving my AmeriCorps term, lost a freshman barely a month ago in a hit-and-run accident.

These aren’t high schools with shootings and assaults and rival gangs who kill each other, these aren’t war-torn halls. For some high schoolers today, quite frequently their friends and peers die young and this becomes a way of life – however, for most suburban American kids this is not normal.

Most young adults experience death first when a beloved pet or a grandparent or maybe an older neighbor dies. Someone is old, someone falls ill…the natural chain of events. They never expect that one of the kids sitting next to them – who are growing taller and lanky, learning to shave or holding hands with their first boyfriend or girlfriend just like them – might die. That one day they’ll be in the seat next to them and the next they won’t.

My sister has had two grandparents and our first Labrador die. But I know the questions and the fears that cross her mind when a junior, a peer, a kid her age dies.

Change isn’t always visible. More often, change happens gradually, invisibly. You don’t notice the half an inch you grew last month, or the deepening of a cousin’s voice and suddenly you are a foot taller and your cousin sounds like a man. But sometimes, one moment stops the world in its spin and when it resumes, you know you’ve changed. When you look back on your life, that moment will always be one that sticks out.

This past week puts me in mind of my own moment. Going on three years ago, University High School lost an alumnus. Nineteen years old, a year into college, my friend was killed by a drunk driver. That was one of my moments. As I trace my transition from adolescence to adulthood, his death is a turning point – a wall fell down, a veil lifted, something was taken from me.

When kids lose one of their own, it is like a fissure, the first crack in the tainted window between them and adulthood. It is the beginning of the end to this window that has allowed them to look at the world full of complete hope and optimism. It has protected them from the sometimes harsh reality of life. For some, this understanding comes too soon – earlier than they deserve, they learn life is hard.

Eventually, they will understand this is a part of life – sometimes shocking, unexpected things happen, sometimes no one has the answers. The pain doesn’t go away, but life will harden them.

For these kids, I hope they remember this moment – not the pain and the heartbreak, but remember what they learned. Remember to hold on to their friends, remember to ask questions, remember that it is okay not to understand – the biggest letdown of adulthood is that adults dont have all the answers either.

I hope the quiet conversations with their parents, the hugs from their friends, and the first tentative laughs and smiles that will inevitably reemerge in their darkened classrooms will stay with them.

Better days will come – these students will have happy, proud moments full of hope and promise and they will have more dark days that will hurt and shake them. This is the first fissure, the first crack on the tough path called growing up.

October 7, 2013

@NBCNews, educators, national leaders and Twitter users talk education at #EducationNation

This week, NBC News has been hosting the fourth annual Education Nation summit, exploring the central theme “What It Takes”. Or “What It Takes” for us as a nation to ensure students are successfully prepared for college, career and beyond,” according to Education Nation’s official website. Naturally, since education is an important topic in the national dialogue, people from all corners joined in the discussion.

I am an avid Twitter-user (the journalist in me is used to crowdsourcing, covering events and keeping up-to-date with what is trending), so I followed the conversation online via the hashtag “#EducationNation.”

Never before have I felt so engaged and interested in what is going on with education in America, but really education has always been a part of my life. I was a public school kid in Florida – riddled with low standards and FCAT controversies, and I attended a state university. I worked on my college’s student newspaper and attempted to keep administrators, university officials and state officials accountable to the 40,000+ students there.

Now, through AmeriCorps, I am working in a ninth grade classroom with high school freshmen from all walks of life. It is easy to make generalizations about education, as people at the summit pointed out. Lawmakers who have never led a classroom pass and sign off on detrimental laws and reporters work on scandals and negative aspects without understanding the bureaucracy. On a given day, I see more stories about teachers abusing students in the news than I do about anything else in the school systems.

Education is the key, we can all agree on that. Education is the key to a successful, prosperous life. It will open the doors to students who don’t have much and it builds our next generation of leaders. The least we can do as a nation, is have a greater understanding of the key issues in school – poverty, students going hungry, funding, standardized testing, students being passed from one teacher to the next/one grade to the next, etc. so that we can better understand the obstacles facing our most valuable asset – the next generation.

The #EducationNation dialogue was only the beginning. Check out my Storify collection of tweets I found interesting from today’s discussion.

September 29, 2013

AmeriCorps Goes Gleaning

On Friday, as part of our bi-weekly NDA meetings, the Apopka AmeriCorps crew went gleaning.

Gleaning from the verb ‘glean’ means: 1. to gather or collect (something) in a gradual way, 2. to search (something) carefully, 3. to gather grain or other material that is left after the main crop has been gathered.

We were tasked with picking corn alongside other volunteer groups at the Long and Scott Farm between Zellwood and Mount Dora, Fla. This leftover corn was the crop deemed unsuccessful or not worthy of being sold, so it was left in the field to either waste or be picked by volunteers. Our corn, which we picked over 5 tons supposedly, went to Second Harvest Food Bank.

Originally, I was apprehensive about our planned team-building activity. It was going to be hot and dirty and hard. Obviously, I was missing the point – as that WAS the point.

The majority of those that the Hope CommUnity Center, our host site, serves are families who are either descendants of migrant workers or have members currently working in the fields.

Other than tourism, Florida is primarily an agricultural state. Citrus, vegetables such as cucumbers and tomatoes, strawberries, sugar cane and ferns are all major crops that grow in Florida’s sandy, but warm climate. As we are beginning to learn, agriculture is a dangerous profession.  In fact, it was listed as one of the most dangerous as recently as this August by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Yet most of someone’s daily meals are all thanks to a farm worker.

Our gleaning experience was simple. and fun. It was a grand adventure, reminicsent of Luke Bryan and country living. We piled into a pick-up truck, was driven out to two small fields and canvassed the rows selecting the remaining small, wimpy ears of corn while also sampling field-fresh corn our selves. It was an enjoyable experience, as it was still morning and was overcast – and we were outside for less than three hours.

Corn isn’t a hard crop to pick; though the picker is stooped you merely have to bend to reach the ear and pluck it – it isn’t like tomatos which are picked along the ground, or oranges which are retrevied from tree tops.

We sang Pocahontas and Uncle Kracker and Instagrammed photos of ourselves, but I couldn’t imagine having to feed my family off of wages earned from baking in the hot Florida sun in a sea of corn, picking crops all day long.

If you had lunch today, thank a farm worker.

Some of the AmeriCorps crew while gleaning. Photo Credit: Gil Portillo.

Some of the AmeriCorps crew while gleaning. Photo Credit: Gil Portillo.

 

September 13, 2013

Why AmeriCorps?

In January of this year, while hustling through my last semester of my senior year of college – I started applying for jobs. I spent the last four years listening to my professors, my classmates, my parents and anyone else with a mouth tell me about how bleak the job prospects were post-graduation – especially for journalists.

I applied for over 150 jobs – most in journalism, some in other forms of communication (public relations, copy-editing, etc.), even a journalism teaching job at an elementary school.

I didn’t turn to AmeriCorps because I thought I couldn’t get a job. As a matter of fact, I had three job offers available to me – all three of them reporter positions in Florida, Texas and Arizona.

To be honest, I looked at AmeriCorps because it seemed like an adventure. It looked cool. It looked like a great opportunity to do something for others, build my resume and have an adventure for a year or two before I settled down fully into “real adult life.”

One of my college roommates, Suzannah, is serving herself as an AmeriCorps member – more specifically as a Teach for America Corps Member. She pursued the idea junior year and most of senior year was consumed with her TFA application process. We were so proud when she was chosen and she is currently English to 10th graders at Manassas High School in Memphis, Tennessee!

Serving others has always been something ingrained in me. I was never part of a youth group or church group growing up, but when I entered high school I started doing CAS hours for the International Baccalaureate Program that I was a part of and I became inspired. In high school, I volunteered alongside my mother for four years at the Orange County Animal Services shelter. I loved dogs so I decided to apply my passion in that direction.

In college, I joined Phi Sigma Pi National Honor Fraternity. Though PSP is an honors fraternity, service is still a key component and we had a variety of service projects over the years. Every time I participated in a service project, I felt better about myself, enjoyed the time spent with like-minded people and learned a lot…about that community, the world and the human condition.

Through PSP, I had the opportunity to go on two Alternative Break Projects where we served in schools with TFA members, did a service project for the students and learned about the state of education in our country and TFA. (Note: TFA is Phi Sigma Pi’s national philanthropy).

It is through these experiences that I realized I could do well in an education setting through AmeriCorps.

I applied to Notre Dame AmeriCorps for a variety of reasons, but the first and foremost is slightly selfish – it was close to home. I knew it would be hard to live off of the AmeriCorps stipend and I also wanted to be back with my family, so when I found an AmeriCorps program I liked in Central Florida – I knew this was the one for me.

A few confessions:

1. I applied for a different position than the one I got. I originally applied for a Media Relations position at the Hope CommUnity Center because it was similar to my desired career path. When I didn’t get that position, I was offered a position at the high school.

2. I originally turned it down. I thought it would be better to attempt to launch my career in Miami but it soon became obvious to me that Miami wasn’t where my heart was – so I called and thankfully the position was still available for me.

So far, I think it has been a great decision!  Definitely a risk and an adventure, but a great decision.