The Parable of the 3 Legged Stool

Imagine a simple, 3 legged stool.  The stool has a flat, round surface at the top, and from the bottom extend three legs, spaced in even thirds around the outer edge of the round surface.  The stool works well when all 3 legs are on the floor.  The stool is stable, and you can use it for all sorts of activities.  You can stand on it to get the fondue pot down off of the top shelf in your storage room, you can sit on it at the kitchen bar while you have breakfast with your family, or you can use it as an extra stand to place food on during Sunday dinner when the rest of the table is overflowing with deliciousness.  It's useful, it's versatile, and it doesn't take a lot of upkeep to maintain its standing status.

Now imagine that someone has been leaning back on the stool while they sit on it, applying a concentrated amount of pressure to a single one of the legs on the stool causing it to snap off.  A stool with two legs has lost the majority of its value as a functional tool. About the only uses that I can think of for a two legged stool is to use it to prop up something else that is applying sufficient downward pressure on it so as to prevent it from falling over under its own weight, or to use it to lean against, but without being actually able to sit down on it.

Since the stool is already broken, the functionality of the stool has already been compromised, and the integrity of having the legs function in their proper manner is no longer in tact.  It is only a matter of time until a second legs breaks off.  And when it does, the once-three-legged-stool-turned-one-leg is now essentially useless as a functional platform.

While the stool can diminish in usefulness by the absence of legs, its usefulness can also be compromised by varying lengths in the legs.  If the legs are all of the same length, the stool will stand nicely on its own, and provide a great surface for the multitude of uses in which it may be applied.  However, if the legs are not the same length, depending on the degree of difference, the stool may lose its functionality all together, regardless of the fact that all three legs actually exist.

In addition to being connected to the flat, round platform at the top of the stool, the legs also need to be connected to one another further down via support struts. If the legs on a tall, 3 legged stool aren't connected to each other further down the legs, then the intense moment arm created near the base of the round platform by applied downward pressure will eventually cause the legs to split outward, and break the stool.

In this parable, the stool represent the functional platform of delivering a child's education.  The flat round surface is what the child actually receives - it's the educational device they "sit on" to perform.  If it is a stable platform with all three legs securely in tact, the stool can be used for nearly anything.  It is in this situation that the child has the greatest chance for success.

Each of the legs of the stool represents a different educational pillar that supports the educational platform.  The first leg represents the parents, the second leg represents the administration of the educational institution the child attends, and the third represents the teacher.

While each of the legs are necessary to create a stable educational platform, they don't each bare an equal portion of the weight, and the portion that each leg will bare changes immensely in every situation.  However, given the ideal situation where each leg is supporting 100% of their own weight, I believe that 30% of the responsibility is born by the parents, 25% comes from the administration, and 45% comes from the teacher.

As I mentioned, these numbers will change greatly under various circumstances, but the point that I want to make here is that placing the sole responsibility of a child's education any single one of these "legs" will result in complete failure.  In fact, in any combination, it will take a minimum of two of the "legs" to provide an educational platform that could even provide a possibility for success.

Teach for America would have us believe that 100% of the responsibility lies on the shoulders of the teacher.  In my experience as a teacher thus far, I would beg to differ.

Even if you were the most incredible teacher of all time, completely capable of differentiating to the exact need of every single student, capable of meeting each various demand of your time - if the student only shows up to class 2 days out of the week because their parents are too scared to wake their child up early for school, or unable to drive them to school if they miss the buss, or incapable of providing any level of support for their child for whatever reason from home - even IF you were the most amazing teacher, there's nothing you can do about that!  You NEED at least some minimal level of support from the parents at home.

Now, you're probably thinking that not all children need the parents to motivate them for every little task like that.  Well, from what I have seen, that is true.  But it only happens with students whose parents at some level have instilled in them an innate desire to succeed and do well on their own.  Which once again, falls back onto the parents.  If the child has not received this type of encouragement/training at home, it's like Newton's first law says - a body in motion (or at rest, in this instance) will remain in that state unless acted upon by an external, unbalanced force.

Let's suppose for a moment now, that the student is showing up to school every day.  Surely then, the teacher can have a much greater effect in the classroom now, and the administration doesn't really have anything to do with it - and surely not 25%?  The direct effect of the administration is somewhat difficult to classify, but allow me to throw out a few situations.

A number of students are continually acting out in class.  They are not receiving any type of discipline from their parents at home, regardless of how many attempts have been made by the excellent teacher to contact them.  The teacher is sending home letters, making phone calls, attempting house visits and parent teacher conferences on weekends, but to no avail.  The child knows they won't be having any level of discipline from their parents, and they can essentially run hog wild.  Regardless of how good the teachers' classroom management is, an effective administration can help control these types of situations by providing alternatives so annoyingly uncomfortable for the student outside of the classroom that the student is left with two decisions - face the consequence of getting sent out of class (which they should learn to HATE) or modify their behavior to act in an acceptable manner in the classroom.

But a great administration is so much more than this - they ensure that teachers have the resources necessary for them to function in the classroom, that they have opportunity to communicate, coordinate, present a unified front, and consistent systems throughout the school to provide the rigor of instruction and consistency that is necessary for the students to succeed.  The administration ensures that each teacher is performing at a level consistent with their expectations, and that if they're not, they provide them with the additional direct support, instruction, and resources to increase their abilities to be in line with such.  The administration ensures that the school environment is one of safety, of optimism and the possibility of achievement.  The overall tone for the school is set by the administration, and in no way does this fall within the realm of control of the teacher.

Finally, just having a strong "stool" with all the parts in perfect shape doesn't guarantee success - it still needs to be sat on.  And ultimately that choice comes down to the students themselves.  However, as a child, the number of viable "sitting places" is truly limited, and so they'll have to make due with what they have at their disposal for the time being, and if the stool is strong, sturdy, and available, there really isn't anything that would deter them from wanting to sit on it.  In fact, when faced with the choice of standing or sitting, 99% of the time they'll take that seat, regardless of how dysfunctional the stool may be.

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Great Teachers - Singlehandedly closing
the achievement gap

Teacher for America panders to this egotistical, goal oriented, delusional, type A mindset by creating this image of a teacher, who, with the right amount of drive and motivation, can singlehandedly close the achievement gap.  And I'll be honest, to generate the publicity that they have received in the last few years, this is exactly the type of people they need to attract for their organization to succeed.  By advertising to this crowd, they have attracted the dreams of the ivy league and elite society hopefuls - a sense of scarcity has been instilled by the difficulty of getting in to the organization, which in turn creates a sense of prestige and privilege by those who actually do.  Joining the ranks of Teach for America feeds the desire to be unique, to stand out from the crowd and to differentiate oneself, and as long as they can continue to feed that image, I believe that having 10% of the graduating classes of the Ivy leagues applying for TFA is near the low end of what we'll see in coming years.

Don't get me wrong - I whole heartedly support the mission of Teach for America and am truly happy that so many non-educationally tracked people are getting in to education.  I believe in the cause that I have united myself to, but that doesn't mean that I have to agree with all of their philosophies and propaganda that they feed us.  I believe in the power of an incredible teacher - it's why I joined TFA in the first place.  I do everything in my power to help my kids succeed, and struggle to cope with the idea that that there are forces at play in my student's education that I have no control over.   But, I will not delude myself into thinking that I am the sole factor in my students education, and I'm telling you now, anyone who joins TFA without eventually coming to this realization has a lot of stress in store - I sure did.

Report from the Classroom

Seeing as how this is my first report about my class, yet I've been teaching them now for two full weeks, I'm not sure where to begin. However, I know some of you are screaming at your screen saying telling me to follow my own advice as I wrote last week and do what any good engineer would do, and start at the beginning. So that is what I will do.

Monday, July 6. It was the second time that I had been in my classroom. If you scroll down in my blog, you'll get some images of the exact scene that I entered - a drab classroom, with a future of events unforeseen nor anticipated, yet expected. Within 30 minutes, I would have a classroom full of students whose future in Algebra 2 laid in my hands.

I wasn't nervous, in fact I felt quite confident that first day. We didn't actually have to teach anything, since the majority of the time would be spent taking a diagnostic. This particular diagnostic was constructed by TFA, and was to be used by my collab (collaborative group - consisting of myself, Michael, Christine, and Jose) to figure out where our students were starting from, and what areas of Algebra 2 needed the most reinforcement.

Perhaps I should lay a little groundwork before I continue, so as to create some structure to the madness that is this blog.

Let me start off by saying that TFA has as many acronyms as the LDS church. I could probably write a dictionary with all the ones that are floating around in my head these days. This collab group that I speak of is a set of 4 CM (corp members) who tag team teach the students in Algebra 2. We work together to give grades, homework, teach objectives, and help the students progress in general. The class time is split into two 2 hour periods, with the first 30 minutes of each period spent in AIH (academic intervention hour). During AIH, we're supposed to use that time to the disgretion of our collab, and review/work on the topics that we feel our students need more individual help with. All four members of our collab are present during that time, and we usually split the class into four smaller groups so that we can give some individualized attention to the students.

The remaining 1.5 hours of each period is split into two, and two CM's are present during each period. We're supposed to spend 1/2 of that time teach, and evidently as I found out this last week, we're supposed to remain a silent observer for the remainder of the time. I teach during the second period with Jose, and we rotate who teaches first each week.

Now, our collab is teaching Algebra 2, which consists of two halves of the year - Algebra 2A and 2B. The first period is supposed to be 2A, and the second period is 2B. Since I'm teaching in the second period, I'm supposed to be teaching 2B for the rest of summer school. Some kids only failed 1/2 of the year, and so that's why they have it split up into two classes.

Now that we have that out of the way, I can continue. Those details are imporant, so if you need a reminder, feel free to refer back to it.

As I had mentioned, this first day we weren't going to be doing anything save the diagnostic. So we were just going to introduce ourselves, hand out the test, and proctor the exam for the whole time, with the 2A diagnostic being administered during the first period, and 2B during the second. I was over the second half of the Algebra 2B period, so if the students finished early, I was supposed to have something prepared to cover whatever time remained until the bell rang.

On our roster, we had 38 students listed. All the experienced teachers told us that if you have 38 on the roster, expect about 1/2 of them to not be there. And so we anticipated the arriaval of 19 students, which was ultimately disproven as the full roster of 38 students showed up in our classroom.

There they were, sitting before me in the sea of grafitti laden, gum ensconced high school desks. Since the summer school at Hamilton High (the name of our high school, which I failed to mention previously) serves a much larger area than just Hamilton High, the students came from all over, and most of them didn't know each other. The first day nerves of unfamiliarity and a new environment kept the students silent. It didn't take much to get their attention, explain the significance of the diagnostic, and pass the test out.

As we passed the test out, we found that a number of the students weren't supposed to be in Algebra 2, but Algebra 1. We dropped to 36 students. After the students had the diagnostic in their hands, another student realized that he wasn't ready for this, and left the classroom. 35.

Now the test was in session. Now, I had taken the exam on my own previously, partially just for fun, and also to get an idea for what exactly we were teaching. It probably took me about 30-45 minutes. During that time, not only did I realize that there were many things I'd need to refresh up on, but I didn't know how to do some of them. So I was pretty surprised when 15 minutes into the test, people started getting done. I hadn't anticipated this...

I'm pretty tenacious in my test taking, and if I don't undertand something, I come back to it at the end and spend whatever time I have left trying to figure it out. As the students began to finish early, I realized that they weren't like that. If they didn't know how to do it, they moved on...

I'd say within about 30 minutes, everyone in the class was done. But we had told them that we wouldn't accept any tests before 45 minutes had past, and so we had to hold them to that. When 45 minutes had passed, we asked who needed more time, and no hands went up. So we collected the test. There are two things to remember at this point. 1. We had planned on having the diagnostic last most of the 1.5 hours after the AIH (first 30 minutes of class where we played a get to know you game with the students) and 2. Jose had the first 45 minuutes of class that day, and I had the second 45 minutes. As soon as Jose had finished collecting the tests, still with 5 minutes left in his teaching period, he looks at me at the back of the room and then says "Ok, now Mr. Woahn has some things for you."

I had planned maybe 20 minutes of material, and now I just had 30 more minutes handed to me. Honestly I wasn't sure what to do for the full time, but my plan had been to go over the syllabus with the class. And by some unknown feat of nature/time-space warp, I was able fill the entire 50 minutes with material to spare, and I believe that the class was engaged for the most part.

I don't plan on going this detailed into every day of the first week, but I did for the first day for this reason. And I just realized I failed to mention something else. Since we're not legit teachers yet, every collab classroom has an FA (Faculty Advisor) who supervises the work we do in the classroom, is legally responsible for the classroom, and gives us practical advice as necessary. Our FA is named Ms. Reisenfeld - she's been teaching math at Hamilton for about the last 20 years.

Anyhow, after we finished our first day, Ms. Reisenfeld came to each of us and gave us some feedback based on our first day interaction. When she came up to me, her first question was "You did very well with your time today - are you a motivational speaker?"

I was flabbergasted. I didn't know what to say, because I can't imagine anyone ever mistaking me as a motivational speaker. Not that I don't believe in my power to motivate others, but as you all know me - I'm not exactly the most dynamic person there is. I always imagine these motivational speakers to be people who are energetic, passionate, with some moving life experience that gets you all riled up to accomplish something monumental.

So I laughed. "No," I said, "I've never done anything like that. That's very kind of you to think so, though."

"Well then," she replies, "Surely you've had experience speaking before, because this definitely wasn't your first time."

I told her she was right - and as we continued the conversation with me telling her that I'd taught Sunday School for the last 5 years, I once again gave silent thanks in my head for the experiences I'd had via the church. This just doesn't go away, does it?

That really concluded our first day. Other than being in the classroom, the rest of our day is filled with these mildly pointless classes and large group meetings where we sit and listen to people talk for four hours. I think I'm supposed to be getting something out of them, but by and large, I tune out. Don't get me wrong, every once in a while they'll nail something that snags my attention, and holds some lasting impression, but the majority of the classes seem to be time fillers, in my opinion.

Obviously, if I wrote this much about every day since that Monday, I think I'd start losing my even my own attention. So I won't, but let me tell you that I easily could. Of the many events that have taken place, there are a couple things that really stood out to me, which I'm going to write about in the immediate entry after this. Overall though, I think I'm going to try and write more frequent entries of lesser length.

Some of the highlights before I move on to my next entry though: student confrontation over taking his hood off, complete rearrangement of our Algebra 2 teaching schedule and class orientation (we're down to 30 students) where we are now teaching the same class for two periods, and are teaching 2A and 2B sequentially, whereas previously we had been teaching them concurrently, results from the initial and final diagnostics (we just finished the entire Algebra 2A course on Friday), 20 hours of sleep during the first week, my first big success with a student, my first flop in the classroom, and the teacher staredown. If any of these things sounds remotely interesting to my readers, please note it in the comments and I'll try to include it in my next entry.

For now, I'm off to dinner. Expect another entry later this evening. Thanks for reading!

Why Engineers Make the Best Teachers

This image has nothing to do with my post. It was just way too awesome to not include somehow.

I know you've all been rocking back and forth in your chairs, waiting in anticipation of this post. I feel it would be cruel and unusual punishment to delay it any further, so I'm going to acquiesce your desires and bring forth my opinion on WHY ENGINEERS MAKE THE BEST TEACHERS.

First a few disclaimers. I have a TON of things to write about today, so this post will solely be focused on its title. Later, I'm going to make a post recapping the numerous events that took place this week, because well, let's face it - a lot of stuff happened.

Also, I can't say that any engineer would make a great teacher. There are a few subset qualifiers within the engineering profession that probably should be added to this post. The title of this post in its true, unadulterated form probably should be something along the lines of WHY ENGINEERS-WHO-HAVE-SERVED-A-MISSION-FOR-THE-CHURCH-OF-JESUS-CHRIST-OF-LATTER-DAY-SAINTS-AND-TAUGHT-MULTIPLE-CHURCH-COURSES-AND-GIVEN-NUMEROUS-TALKS-IN-CHURCH-AND-HAVE-GOOD-PRESENTATION-SKILLS-AND-ARE-ABLE-TO-READ-WHETHER-OR-NOT-SOMEONE-IS-UNDERSTANDING-WHAT-YOU-ARE-EXPLAINING-TO-THEM-AND-CAN-SPEAK-OBJECTIVELY-ABOUT-THEIR-OPINIONS-AND-CAN-WORK-WELL-WITH-OTHERS MAKE THE BEST TEACHERS. Unfortunately, that title was a little long, so I just put the essential parts up there. And lest you are all thinking "Jonathan is only talking about himself with this one", I can think of at least one other engineer who meet these rigorous requirements. So no, I'm not just ranting as to why I will make the best teacher. And especially after this week... opinions may have changed. More on that in my next post.

As any good engineer would do, let's start at the beginning. What is the purpose of a teacher? A teacher is a person who teaches or instructs. Pretty straightforward. In my case, I am "teaching or instructing" Algebra 2 for LA Summer School.

There is an important point that needs to be made here before I continue this discussion, and that is just an extension of my opening argument, which is that any field of engineering is probably the greatest education that a person can receive. The reason why we all choose engineering is because we like to figure stuff out, we like to know how things work, and we're usually pretty good at it. Based on these facts, we can extend this desire to satisfy our lust for comprehension to any field. We may not be able to understand something now, but we have an innate confidence that given adequate time and resources, we will be able to. Except with maybe relationships - rarely are they logically based, and so there is no straightforward sequence of facts that can be followed to discover its fundamental elements. So maybe in that regards, we fail. But other than that, I feel I can freely speak for my profession and confidently assert that we don't know or understand everything, but we can.

Going back to teaching. When I signed up for Teach for America, one of the questions they ask you in your application is what subject do you feel most qualified to teach? I looked at the list - English, History, Music, Chemistry, Biology, Spanish, Physics, Statistics, Math - and I checked all of them. Ok, I didn't check Music, but I did check the rest of them. I speak all of those languages, and I knew that if I didn't remember every detail, I was confident that my engineering background wouldn't let me fail. I could go back and relearn it, because at some point during my Engineering education, I had taken advanced courses in all of those subjects, and it would only be a matter of refreshing to be able to teach it. As Engineers, we take such a diverse course load that it only strengthens our conviction that we can teach ourselves anything.

Evidently there is a shortage of math teachers in this country, and for some TFA felt that I was most qualified to teach math. Which I was totally happy with, because when it came down to it, that was the language I'd need the least refreshment of, with the exception of maybe physics.

Once an engineer knows the subject that they'll be instructing, this is where our education and innate nature really come into play. We look at the fundamentals of what we're going to be teaching - what is the foundation that this subject has been constructed upon. In my case, the question was what are the basic principles of Algebra 2 that my students will need to know in order to pass the class? I can relate this back to the many physics and engineering courses, where we would take a potentially complex situation, - such as a sealed, heated water tank that is being elevated through a vacuum being maintained at a constant temperature while losing water through a hose of varying diameter that is attached 3 feet from the bottom of the tank, and being asked to solve for the rate at which the entropy is increasing in the enclosed space. Sure, it sounds complex, but if we just change the inertial frame, set some boundaries, calculate the biot number of the tank, and have a table to give us a few constants - this becomes child play! A proverbial engineers playground, if you will.

Comparatively, figuring out a high school Algebra 2 course is child's play. Plus, Algebra 2 is a class that most engineers took years ago, so for them, it really was child's play.

Once those basic elements of what they want to accomplish have been discovered, the next question an Engineer will ask themselves is - what steps do I need to take to get from point A, where we are now, to point B - mastery of the fundamental elements of our subject. I can liken this stage of teaching to the many times where our teachers would give us an assignment, such as, say, reduce the lead time of constructing a custom foot orthotic from 2 weeks to thirty minutes. We want results in 6 months. At this point we had the vision of where we wanted to be, and when we wanted to be there. Now we just had to backwards plan, and identify every obstacle that stood between us and our objective.

Such as it is with teaching. We have our ultimate objective - pass the state test that will be administered 9 months from now. At this point, and engineer will sit down and meticulously backwards plan every detail that needs to happen from now until the time we sit down to take the test. Details such as in what logical, sequential order should the material be presented to how many #2 pencils am I going to need in order to administer the final exam?

We pay attention to the details. The next time you get in your car on a hot summer day, look at the air vent, from which the cool, air conditioned air is blowing from. Consider the fact that ever little flap in that vent at some point, was considered by an engineer - how it would connect to the vent housing, to the shape of the vent flap and its drag coefficient, and how the turbulence would vary according to the air speed that is flowing over it, and interfere with the overall cooling of the vehicle. That's not to mention the flow dynamics of the piping to get the air from the compressor (meticulously designed by an engineer) to your face (designed by another type of engineer). The details matter.

Now that we have our subject, and have painstakingly hammered out the details of our class, now we have to teach it to our students. This is where our background as engineers in the LDS church really begin to pay off. Even if we don't consider the fact that we spent 730 days in some foreign land teaching people gospel principles, the odds are that from the time we were able to walk, at some point we were standing in front of a group of people, be it primary or the Elder's quorum, giving a detailed discourse on our assigned topic. Our presentation skills have been refined over years of church service, and we feel comfortable in giving presentations before unknown audiences.

As missionaries, we had to ensure that our audiences well understood the material we were teaching them. They had to understand the immense importance of the covenant they were going to make with God. This requires a certain level of being able to read a person's comprehension of the material. In like manner, as an engineer teaching in front of a room of adolescents, we have to be able to look at our students and gauge how far the material we have broken down for them is sinking into their young minds. The quizzical look that appears on a person's face as a result of misunderstanding has duly been impressed on our minds, and it is quickly apparent as we gaze across our classrooms.

The final point I want to make, is that as a teacher there are many people besides your students you have to interact with. There are parents, principals, and other faculty members who all want to have a say in how things are going in your classroom. As an engineer, we have extensive experience of dealing with the masses, compiling their input, and then extracting the necessary data from it in order to make adjustments to our projects. And not only making adjustments from outside sources, but from within as well. As engineers, we rarely work alone on a project, and almost always in conjunction with a team of engineers. It is important that we learn to listen to the input of our fellow engineers, because we recognize that others have insights and areas of expertise where we are lacking. We know that it is only by working together in a sense of teamwork, where all are contributing their personal backgrounds to the project, that the best results are attained. Such are the things in the classroom. As we work with our administrators and colleagues, we need to be able to value their input and years of experience, and incorporate that into our plans.

My intent has been to convert you to engineering in general, but more specifically if you are looking to go into education. And even if you aren't, like I said earlier, engineering will give you the skills to do, well, whatever you want. Or at the very least, that's what your brain will tell you.

But in all seriousness, I have written this hopefully with enough of a fun, semi-sarcastic/serious tone that you have been able to tell where I mean which. The idea for this really came during my first week here at TFA, where the material we covered for the first 4 days LITERALLY was everything that I have learned as a result of being a member of the Church, and in my engineering courses. The classes I attended talked about backwards planning, setting goals, and effective presentation methods - all things that I had either explicitly taken classes on, or had learned as a result of church service. It was frustrating for me to have to sit through these, but as I sat there, I realized that for probably 95% of the other people there, they didn't have experiences that had bolstered their backgrounds in this area.

So I sat in frustration, but I got through it. While in reality, I hold high regards for the thesis of this document, I truly recognize that there are innumerable other qualities that make a great teacher, and they are not only found in many, many areas outside of engineering, but that there are many areas that engineering really doesn't prepare you for. I want to give a shout-out to all those educators in my family, and friends who are doing likewise - I'm appreciative of the work you do, and know that there aren't enough of us out there. The children of our future could use more fantastic, dedicated minds.

Kudos to all of you who have gotten to the end of this entry. I hadn't intended for this to be so long, but as I got going, I realized I had a lot to say. My next entry will probably be just as long, but after that, I hope to make many more frequent, less extensive entries. This week was just crazy, as you’ll see in the next episode. Coming next - week one.

Teaching for America - Day 2

As that oh-so-familiar scent of weed wafts through my open dorm room window, I contemplate on the journey I am about to embark on. It's a gentle reminder of the fact that as outstanding as every person in this program is, they're still only human.

This is my second night in the enormous city of Los Angeles, on the beautiful little campus of Layola Marymount University. Actually, when it comes down to it, the campus really isn't that little - I guess in my head it just seems that way since they have a student population somewhere in the 9000's. Even still, it's a very nice campus - immaculately landscaped with beautiful facilities. Their student life/administration building could be an upscale mall. It is four stories, lined with various shops, cafe's, and student services. And there are escalators amongst the four floors, which in my mind are the qualifying factor for the mall status.

We (the Corp members) are staying in the dorms on campus. Most everyone is sharing a single bathroom between four people, but somehow I lucked out. My only campanion is the lady-on-wheels that I've ridden from the smooth streets of Phoenix, Arizona to the winding paths on the Bay shoreline. Usually she doesn't say much, but recently she's been snapping at me from the crankset - I think I need to get her serviced.

No, but seriously, I have my own room. I'm not sure by what luck that fate fell into my lap, but I welcome it gladly. Mom thinks that having a last name starting with "W" begat me that honor. However, given that my last name is a far cry from the Zanotelli, Zellman, and Zhao who round off the list, I'm a little skeptical. Plus, my bathroom-mate's (the kid who shares my bathroom) last name starts with a "P". What other theories might there be?

Everything regarding registration today was, as is customary with TFA, incredibly organized. It is so bizarre to see this organization, with the amazing things that they acomplish, and their astounding attention to detail and logistics, yet never see a person over the age of 35. The only organization that I feel comes close to their level of planning is the church, and even then, mostly regarding the MTC and Temple open houses. And perhaps one of the many awesome family vacations we've taken that Mom planned. So what I'm really saying is that it's rare to see any organization run like TFA is, especially when you consider it's coming from such a young crowd.

Perhaps the oldest person in TFA is the founder, Wendy Kopp (42). This organization started in 1990, and a majority of the alumni since then have continued in education, and have assumed leadership roles on Boards of Education, as super-intendants, and principals. Everyone that I have met on the TFA staff in the Bay, and now in LA, are people that have completed their TFA commitment since 2002, and are now working in various positions throughout the region. I mean, the Regional director for the Bay finished her TFA assignment in 2004. I'm not sure why I'm so blown away by this, but I am. Maybe you'd just have to experience it for yourself to know what I'm talking about.

Well, my bedtime is closing in on me. Seeing that I will be waking up circa 5:00 am on every weekday for the next few years, I'm going to make great efforts to get to bed around 10 every night. It'll be a struggle, since I've somewhat accostumed myself to a 12-1 am bedtime over the last few months, but I figure heck - I did it on the mission once, I can do it again. Although this is 1.5 hours earlier than I ever did back then...

Tune back in here for more updates soon - I have a million things to write about. I'm actually starting to make a list of things that I want to write on here about, and it's growing quickly. Some of the topics for my future posts include how TFA has stolen its organizational and growth model from the Church (not really, but boy it's scary similar), how engineers probably make the best teachers (obviously this is biased), an experience with the SFUSD HR representative regarding benefits paperwork, and STRS. Ooohhh, that last one gets my blood going just thinking about it. I know, thrilling topics for sure. Just you wait...