Day -1, Week 1

I begin my internship tomorrow in Recruiting and Admissions at Education Pioneers. I am moved into my apartment in Cambridge with some local students, have loaded the cabinets with Trader Joe's anything, picked out a youthful but classy dress-and-blazer combo for tomorrow and caught up on this season of Bones. I'm ready to go.

Since I can't really talk much about the mission in practice of Education Pioneers yet — I've read their strategic plan, but I think the best way to understand the organization will be through my work —I'd like to give you a bit of my own background, if you will. That way, in my analyses of urban education and education reform, which will be inevitably tainted by my own experiences and scope of knowledge, you can understand my perspective a bit better.

I attended Shawnee Mission Schools in a predominantly white suburb of Kansas City. I come from a middle class household and my mother has always been invested in my education, as well as in social justice. I vote Democrat. I study American Studies at the University of Kansas and have used that as a way to analyze what I know about schools, as well as dystopian fiction and Brownback's reproductive rights policies. I am always trying to check my privilege. I do not want to be a teacher for my career, but I have found considerable satisfaction in my previous work experiences in working with students of all ages. Next semester, I will be an assistant advisor for a high school yearbook and a teaching assistant for at least one course.

In winter 2010, I attended an Alternative Break to Chicago to shadow Teach for America teachers and in the preparation and reflection on that trip became interested in education policy and reform. In my intellectual immaturity, I was instantly sold on Teach for America. Later when I heard the idea of merit pay, I was convinced that that was a better solution. Almost as quickly as my preference for education reforms changed, education reform fads rise to popularity. Now, I understand that education is connected to larger issues of poverty and institutionalized racism, and there is no quick fix that will close an achievement gap like the one we see in urban schools. Something I hope to come to understand better is how that knowledge does inform good, equitable education policy.

I hope by blogging this summer, I can dissect some of my own ideas and, granting your participation, get some feedback. Also, I would expect some pictures of brick buildings and some analyses of Boston accents to end up on this blog (I'm also an eager but underinvolved linguistics major, especially interested in sociolinguistics).

Until later! Wish me luck tomorrow!