That's Miss Effie to you!

It's been a long time since I last posted on this blog, so I'm sure my followers have whittled down to just a few. But I have a great excuse...I've been working in a high school in Orlando for the past six months!

I'm not a teacher, but rather a volunteer in another teacher's classroom as a tutor and mentor in order to try to close the resource gap between what the students need and what the school can provide. Despite not actually having to teach the whole class, it's still grueling work. Most days, I leave my house around six in the morning and don't get home until shortly before six at night. My students need academic, emotional, and sometimes medical support that I'm really not qualified to provide. But I can listen to them, and I can work with them on today's algebra problems, and that seems to make a difference.

Oh, and by the way, the high school that I work in is Title I. This means that more than 90% of the students qualify for free and reduced lunch from the government. We get other funding from the government, too - our tutoring program, substitute teachers' salaries, and other necessary resources. Surprisingly, while we have a high ESOL population (students whose first language is not English), there is very little funding for these programs. My students may not talk about it, but they face issues every day that most students will never even have to think about - and most of these stem from growing up in an area of generational poverty.

That's where I come in. I'm a resource for my students and for my partner teacher, to offer the type of individual attention they need and very rarely get. I'm under extra pressure in a 9th grade algebra class, because my students have to pass the math exam at the end of the year in order to graduate high school. They have the next three years to try again, but we really want them to pass it now and stay on track to graduate.

We're a little over halfway through the year now, and the results of our hard work are starting to show. Still, when you're in the same classroom every day watching kids who couldn't multiply at the beginning of the year continue to struggle through problems, it's difficult to remember that we really do make a difference. That's why I'm going to start posting positive stories over the next few months, just so we can show exactly what we're here for.