My First Year in Fifth Grade: A Teach for America Diary

Cole Farnum left Commonwealth Avenue for Brownsville, Tex., when he joined Teach for America after graduating from BU. In this series, taken from letters to his family and friends, Farnum (CAS’06) recounts his first year in the classroom. Check BU Today each day this week to read about beginnings, endings, and the ups and downs in between. This year’s Teach for America application deadline is November 2; e-mail TFAatBU@gmail.com. Click here to read part two. Click here to read part three. Click here to read part four. Click here to read part five.

It’s been a long road since I graduated from Boston University in 2006 — a road way down to Brownsville, a town at the southernmost tip of Texas. I became a fifth-grade teacher through Teach for America in September 2006 because I thought it was the best step for me at that point in my life. I believed my purpose was to avoid sitting at a desk all day, and to channel my energy into something valuable. I got my wish, both because I have never in my life spent more time on my feet and because this is simply the most important thing I have ever done, and perhaps ever will do.

Throughout college, I lived in a bubble. I studied for exams so much that, when tested, I didn’t have time to write down everything I knew. I would spend a Saturday night typing up my classroom notes to ensure that I wouldn’t be surprised on my final exams — often still a month away. My first year in Brownsville introduced me to everything that had passed me by while I was sequestered in the library.

My class is roughly half boys and half girls, most aged 10 or 11. Two children have severe-to-moderate attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Another is 13 and cannot read or write in English or Spanish, after spending his whole life in bilingual education. He has yet to spell even a few words correctly on basic spelling exams and writes “I” as “a,” despite many corrections. Three are diagnosed with dyslexia, but I have a feeling that more in my class should be screened due to their frequent reversals, writing and reading things backwards. One of my students is 12 and has an IQ of 72, which is at the borderline for developmental disability.

There are so many things that go into teaching one child, not to mention the total of 20 that I have. But I must say that I love my class. Despite all of their individual needs, each one has made me laugh, smile, and cry. Sometimes I want to leave; sometimes I want to stay; most of the time I am not sure what I am doing here. My transition when I started — from a focus on self-betterment to being a slave to a child’s academic and social needs — was aided by the work ethic I’d cultivated at BU, but I was far from confident that my study skills would help a child understand long division. The doubt creeps into my dreams at night; during the day, I have to trick myself into thinking of life outside my classroom. I am consumed by this.

However, I am still here — and that’s all that matters. My experiences and relationships at my high school and at BU taught me to remain confident when everything is failing, to try again when the results are terrible, and most of all, to keep expecting the best. To expect that my lowest performers will not pass the state exams would be the most destructive thing I could do to them, and to expect my highest performers to simply maintain would be just as bad. Here in the Rio Grande Valley, intelligence is not the problem; it is motivation. When things become ordinary, I have to reinvent everything to keep them on their toes. I have to show up every day with the same intensity that I had on day one and follow through on all the promises I’ve made to my children and colleagues. It’s so important to show the children that success is indeed an option, and that college, no matter how far off, is a possibility.

Cole Farnum can be reached at cole.farnum@corps2006.tfanet.org.