June 18, 2008, Wednesday

I’m getting very disillusioned with Teach for America. The ideals are great and all, but the summer institute details are miserable. I’m thinking I would have been better off taking a job at a private middle school or high school or trying to find a job at an underperforming school because this summer is just miserable. If I wanted 70-80 hour work weeks I would have taken a job with an I-bank and made a heck of a lot more money.

One of my friends mentioned how it would be interesting to know the amount of alcohol consumed by TFA members the first weekend. It’s insane. I thought the Charlotte corps was different than W&L because people we being reasonable with alcohol over induction week, but this weekend was nuts. One friend spent $83 (yes, $83!) on alcohol on Saturday night. I know of some people who have even started drinking – not heavily, but still drinking – during the week because it’s so stressful. And these are people who supposedly handle stress well.

Another conversation I had with my roommates this weekend was about how TFA is a cult. It quite possibly could be. During induction week we got speeches about how it was very important to always represent our experience positively and if we didn’t we were basically betraying the movement. Oops, I guess I’m a traitor now for some of the things I’ve written… I’m not just trying to find that negatives but I’m not going to ignore them either.

I had a chat with my CMA this morning about how institute it going and she’s telling me how I should get more sleep. Her suggestion was to set a bedtime tonight. I’m thinking “Are you kidding me?” Seriously – if I set a bedtime and my work isn’t done, do I just get to go to bed? It’s not like I’m wasting time and waiting until midnight to start my work. There’s just so much that TFA tries to cram in that it just isn’t working. I’m participating in the session a lot (partly to make sure I stayed awake) but I can’t tell you what I learned yesterday. It’s not that the information isn’t worthwhile – it definitely is – but I’d like to learn it when I’m able to remember it.

Quote of the day: “Erica definitely has a plan for me.” – Jeremy