Work hard. Get smart.

I'm almost finished with my first week of TFA Institute. These past four days of waking up at 4 a.m. and going to bed between 12 and 1 have been insane. I've never worked so hard in my life. But at the same time, I don't know if I've ever had more fun.

Here are this week's highlights. Unfortunately, I don't have any picture yet.

Monday: My first 6 a.m. bus ride to the school in south Brooklyn where I'm teaching summer school 3rd and 4th grade ESL. My first impression? This place is incredible. From my classroom I have a clear view of the Statue of Liberty. With a little leaning, I can see the Manhattan skyline. I wish they were hiring for the school year.

Tuesday: The work is really starting to get tough. I took a seminar on administering reading assessments. It's not just theoretical knowledge. I have to administer them to my new students tomorrow. I took another seminar on backwards planning. Not theoretical either. I have to create a plan of all the summer's objectives now, so I can start lesson planning later this week. Thank god for my collaboration group, the three other new TFA teachers who I am working with this summer. I really lucked out getting them (Allison, Patrick and Chana) as teammates. I think we'll work really well together.

Wednesday: We learned how to write lesson plans today. I have to write two tonight for next Monday and Tuesday's writing lessons. I have no idea what I'm doing, but at least I don't have to teach math ... yet.

Thursday: Even though this week has seemed like two months, the work I am doing feels so rewarding already. I was in the resource lab in my dorm at St. John's, where TFA has provided thousands of books that we can check out and utilize in our classroom, and I came across so many of the books that I loved when I was in the third and fourth grades. A Wrinkle in Time. Matilda. Shiloh. Then I realized that there's no way, based on my students' reading diagnostics, that they would be able to get through even a chapter of one of those books. The most advanced of them (some of whom are entering the fifth grade in the fall) are reading at best on a third grade reading level. But most of them are barely on a first or second grade level.

We have so much work to do.