Last night I stayed in Spanish Town (an old neighborhood next to the capitol area) at teammates’ Blake and Craig’s apartment. We were awoken at 4 by the fire department bangning on the door, telling us to get out because the house next door was on fire. Scary stuff.

http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/79028947.html

Luckily no one was hurt and the fire did not spread to any other structures.That’s the news in my life right now.

Stacy’s brother (N), Chad, Blake, Josh (N), Kevin, Lisa

Molly, Nadine (NOLA), Stacy, Kate, ME!

Craig, Mariel, Stacy’s boyfriend (N), Marien (N)

Kyle, Carolyn, Bryan, Chante

Lexi, Kelsey, Charisma, Desiree

It was a great meal- hope yours was good too :)

The experience I had today is the exact reason I joined City Year.

Click here to watch the opening clip- City Year Members can be seen working in the background.

Then it snowballed- Starbucks sponsors Morning Joe, so naturally there was media coverage (the entire show was broadcast from John McDonough, with 3 hours of prime morning time); Houghton-Mifflin got involved and donated 700 textbooks; Spalding was contacted and agreed to donate new basketball hoops and nets; and in perhaps the most bizarre (and possibly scripted) part of the whole event was an appearance by Digger Phelps, former Notre Dame basketball coach. Immediately after the Vice President in Charge of Community Outreach handed over the novelty-sized $125,000 check to the school’s principle, Digger stepped up and called out a challenge to Robbins Sports Surfaces (a company who manufactures professional sports floors) to come to John McDonough and install a new floor. Twenty minutes later, a representative from Robbins was at the school- he measured the floor, made a call to someone, and then announced on-air that the company accepted Digger’s challenge- this happened within an hour. I’m doubtful that it wasn’t a clever publicity stunt, but I’d like to think that corporate spontaneity exists.

In Baton Rouge, we did a service project at the African American Museum of Now and Then which was a lot of mural painting, flower planting, etc. It was a good day with plenty of work and no down time.

Tomorrow is the last day of school (East Baton Rouge Public Schools takes the whole week off for Thanksgiving): we have a corps appreciation day on Monday and two service projects on Tuesday and Wednesday. Wednesday night I’ve organized about 30 people to do set up for Thanksgiving service at the River Center (BR’s main event center) and then about 25 people to serve meals in the morning and early afternoon while the other 5 start cooking cooking. We’re going to converge on one of the CM’s house for dinner around 4 and then eat, eat eat.

Hope your weeks are going well :)

Went to NOLA today and had a very pleasant time. We had a community meeting, which is hard to describe, but consists of each team presenting an interpretation of some of the central elements of City Year culture, usually through the lense of pop culture. In October, it was the Adams Family. This month, Star Wars. Progress is up next, theme to be decided.

Have a great weekend!

12:58 I look in on Mr. Blake who works in Ms. August’s class next door. They have a sub today, and I played enforcer while the sub helped someone with math and Mr. Blake took 3 students to the time out room (T.O.R.).

1:04 I learn that one of my favorite students, *******,  is moving next week.

1:10 I check in on my first grade student again, and his behavior has been very poor :( We go outside and talk about it, and he tells me he wants to be good for the rest of the day “for my brother” (me).

1:25 I pull out my last student of the day, and we sit on the benches outside and work on cursive writing, -ight words, and we read a short story about Liz and Tess, who are pen pals.

1:50 On Wednesdays, there is an hour and a half block where the students have in class Spanish and Library and go out for P.E. Today I came back into the classroom only to find there was no P.E. teacher. We went outside and jerked (which my kids told me I did real well, but they were probably lying) until Ms. Howard, the Assistant Principle came by and sent us back inside. We had no teacher, but luckily we were watching Charolette’s Web today, so I had that to pacify them.

2:25 I leave the classroom and go to Team planning, where I work on misc. Today I wrote a proposal for a presentation where middle schoolers would come to Progress to tell 5th graders about what to expect next year (assuming they pass their iLEAP tests). I also meet with Mr. Kevin to discuss our speaking points at a parents meeting later in the month.

3:15 I go to the auditorium where all of the students who participate in 21st Century (the name of the afterschool program at Progress) are lined up by grade, waiting for their afterschool teachers to show up. The hour and half is divided between homework help and tutoring for the standardized tests (iLEAP) they all have to take.

3:18 Ms. Ross tells me my first grade student’s behavior was terrible the rest of the afternoon :(

3:40 Homework help is 6/10′s getting kids to read the directions, 3/10′s soothing them so they don’t cry when they don’t get the answer right, and 1/10 getting them to write the answers down.

4:10 Switch to tutoring. At this point in the day my brain is useless.

4:55 Tutoring is over and most of the kids are back in the auditorium, waiting for their buses.

5:oo City Year Final Circle. We debrief, share highs and lows of the day, usually in the form of “Roses and Thorns”.  Discuss stuff for tomorrow. Break.

6:30 Tonight is special, and Kevin and I have to be at the office for an open house (which has exactly no attendees). Because Kevin and I are the two drivers this week (for a total of 9 people), everyone on our team goes to the office. I got a bunch of worksheets printed off for next week and had a meeting with a couple people about organizing service and a big group dinner for Thanksgiving.

7:40 Leave the office with a full car: Andrew, Jenna, Kyle, and Carolyn.

8:20 Home. I am thrilled I have no work to do tonight. Blog writing, then going to sleep.

Miles traveled today: 63.

Hours worked: 11.99

Ah, service.

6:10 Eat breakfast of yogurt and raisin bran. Pack lunch.

6:26 Out of the house, on the road. Listening to book on CD, currently on Frank Herbert’s Dune.

6:40 Pick up first two members of my carpool, Carolyn and Jenna. Switch from Dune to Urban Top 40.

6:48 Pick up third member of carpool, Andrew.

6:59 Pick up fourth member of carpool, Lexi.

7:11 Arrive in Spanish Town, and old neighborhood right off downtown, which is what I imagine Haight-Ashbury to have been like. Drop off Carolyn and Lexi (who catch another car from there) and pick up Blake and Craig.

7:25 Arrive at Progress Elementary.

7:46 First Circle: City Year required briefing that starts every day.

7:59 First school bus arrives- I am either power greeting out front by high fiving every student who comes into school (hello H1N1) or in the auditorium (where they go after eating breakfast) participating in City Year led morning stretches.

8:30 Whole Class Support: getting students into the classroom, settled down, started on their morning math. Helping my teacher, Mrs. Raborn, with administrative stuff.

8:50 I check in with Ms. Ross, who teaches 1st grade, and spend about 20 minutes with *******, who I’m mentoring.

9:25 I read a chapter from “James and the Giant Peach”, taking frequent pauses to ask questions about the meanings of words (“Let’s use our context clues…”) or to solicit predictions about the upcoming chapter.

9:45 I get all of my lesson plans and materials lined up for my small groups.

10:00 I pull my first student out of class. We go outside and sit on the benches CY build on our opening day (see 10/2 post) and work on sight word flashcards, finding the value of three dimes+two nickels+four pennies+half dollar, or talked about theme, setting, characters, etc. I try and have some kind of warm up, a lesson, a game, and a wrap up. They’re supposed to run 30 minutes, but have been lasting as long as 45.

10:40 I finish with my first student and pull two more students out this time. Same routine. This group is more active than the first, so I make them run laps around the benches first, make them run more in the middle of the lesson, and then make them run again at the end of the group.

11:18 I take one student who’s not in either my math or english focus groups outside to read to me. Of the 18 kids in my class, about 5 are on track to meet end of year standards for math and english comprehension, and those are the students I don’t work with, but I try and do something with them once a week.

11:50 Lunch. I eat with the other 3rd grade CY’s in the teachers’ lounge.

12:25 Back in the classroom.

Rather than save this and forget about it, I’m going to publish it and try and come back later and finish it.

[In response to a new knowledge of City Year policies on responsible electronic organizational representation, and because City Year is such a focus of this blog, a large number of images and text have been removed or altered.]

There quality of costumes on Bourbon fell into a pretty predictable bell curve, with a lot of meh ones and a handful of really good ones. Here’s what I remember: a fried egg body with horns and a red face (deviled egg); a team costume with a gym coach in the lead, blowing on a cadence on a whistle with 5 people dressed as cones following; lots of Max’s from WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE; Harry and Lloyd from Dumb and Dumber; three guys with lightsabers dressed as plane traffic controlers; and a lot of Wizard of Oz, Mario and Luigi, and toga-centered costumes.

I got to work with kindergartners today after school, and boy do they like hugs. We were playing letter bingo when Mr. Blake, my fellow facilitator, shouted “Let’s all hug Mr. Greg!!!”

Very busy day- read a book in the morning to all of the kids in the auditorium after they got done eating breakfast (Horton Hatches an Egg); had a phone interview for City Year’s A-Team, which is the responsible for Corps PR (and a really, REALLY good networking opportunity); read the first chapter of “James and the Giant Peach” to my class and had a discussion about what’s going to happen in chapter 2; pulled 4 small groups out of the classroom to work on stuff (3 on money, 1 on reading); met with Progress reading coach to discuss one of my student’s serious reading troubles; got asked to mentor a first grade boy; wrote a thank you card to 4 teachers who cooked us lunch on Tuesday (shrimp pasta, split peas and ham, salad, garlic bread, peach cobbler, and cream cheese cupcakes); and got everyone in my carpool home safe and sound.

Time for dinner and bed.

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