Auntie Kara goes virtual!

Well, we have another blogger in the family. Auntie Kara has started a blog about her adventures as a teacher in Houston with the Teach For America program.

I have 2 sisters who share the same mom and dad as I do. There are also 3 step sisters and one half brother but that's a story for a whole different blog. Out of the three of us Kara is the baby. She is also the one with the biggest heart. She volunteered in high school, not because it would make her college applications look good but because she felt like she should. (Although it did make her college applications look good and she got into a kick butt college.) In college she got amazing grades and could have scored a summer internship at any PR firm in Dallas but she went to work for a non profit. And after graduating with a seriously impressive college record (ridiculous grades, more volunteering, Panhelanic positions galore) she decided to work for Teach For America. Teach For America is a program that takes some of the brightest college grads, trains them in an excruciating summer program, and then places them in some of the worst school districts in the country. Just to give you an idea of how selective this program is - in 2008 18,000 people applied and 2,900 were accepted. She has faced some crazy challenges since starting last year. After being trained in kindergarten she was placed as a 6th grade English teacher. She spent 6 weeks getting her bearings, learning her kids names, and making lesson plans. And then on a Friday afternoon her principal mentioned that she was being transferred to 8th grade reading on Monday! Some of the things she has seen completely blow my mind. Kids that drove themselves to 8th grade registration, no books for the kids, books that they do have the kids aren't allowed to take home, lots of Katrina survivors; things that you just don't really think about until your sister is telling you that about half of her class couldn't even come up with the name of one college because they had no hopes of ever going. Or how when one girl got pregnant the little girls in her class couldn't get over how cute her school uniform looked with her belly. Are you questioning the effectiveness of a teacher trained over a summer and then tossed into some of the most challenging classrooms in the country? Read this. (Is it really obvious how proud I am of her? She was just asked to speak at a fundraiser becuse her test scores last year for her classes were THAT good. Yea Bear!)

I know this is a baby blog. So how does this relate to Sam? There are things that I hope she will learn from all of the people in her life. From Kara - I hope that she sees what a difference one person can make.

Auntie Kara and Sam (almost a week old)