What's Next?

It's hard to believe that my two years as a TFA corps member are almost over. When I decided to apply back in February of 2005 (when I was living in Sardegna) two years seemed like such a long time. (How could I commit to living in the states for two whole years?) Soon after arriving in New York I started thinking that maybe I would teach a third year too. Living in New York City, though not a foreign country, is certainly more exciting than living on a small island--even if that island is in Italy. Now that the two years have flown by, who knows, maybe I'll even start thinking about a fourth.

So, I am definitely committed to staying in New York and teaching next year. There are a lot of reasons teaching another year makes sense. First, I feel like I'm just getting started when it comes to being a good teacher. I still have so much room for improvement in my teaching, I don't want to quit before I have a chance to realize my potential. Also, and I just learned this, I need to teach a third year in order to get my professional teaching certificate. Last, when I finally do decide to get that international school job abroad, I want to have a little bit more experience under my belt.

So where does that leave me for next year? When I switched schools last year I wanted a school that I could stick with for two years. I made the switch and my school is 100% better than my first year and I am a lot happier with my program. Still, things aren't perfect. The administration is terrible. I spent most of the year on what I call "the bad list" though it seems like things have recently turned around and I might just be back on "the good list." The staff is so much better than at my previous school and there are a lot of good teachers here that I can learn from but most of them are talking about "getting out" next year. While my school definitely isn't the worst, I long to work in a school with a supportive environment where the staff works together and teachers rave about the good things going on at their school. (This really happens, I have been to a lot of PDs at schools where this is the case).

Being that it is the end of my two years in TFA, I have started getting a lot of recruitment emails and such from the charter schools. Today I went to a career fair-type event sponsored by TFA that had many charter schools and some public schools there in addition to other non-profits. I didn't see any school that I was totally in love with but a few that I might look into some more. I'm not sure that I want to make the switch to a charter school (partly because I can hardly fathom the hours of their school days. Selfish?) Even so, I think ideally, I'd like to be at a really great public school. And, even if I did find that, I don't know how I feel about working at a third school in three years.

I mentioned to my principal recently that I would really like to teach a self-contained K,1, or 2 class next year (technically out of my license area). She said to put that down on my end of the year preference sheet. If she gave me that, I might be convinced to stay as that is what I've really wanted all along.

In any case, I'm definitely teaching in NYC next year.