Hitting and Quitting LA

I am called Taylor Hahn. I am known as 22 years old, as blonde, as female. It is known by most that I am leaving Los Angeles to become a teacher in New York City as a corps member of Teach for America. It is unknown that I am generally functioning on various levels of fear that I will not be able to fulfill the responsibilities that I am soon to assume. Or if I fulfill them, that I will not fulfill them well. I proceed with the highest of expectations about this task; that I will become stronger, more determined, and more successful than Michelle Pfeiffer in Dangerous Minds. But I am scared. Prior to late spring, the last time that I can recall my eyes filling with tears was when Edward left a desperate Bella in the forest in the second installment of the Twilight series. Now, my eyes are consistently swollen and the red lines surrounding them indicate to all that they tear on a daily basis, crying for the people I must leave, the city I must depart, and the comforts I have grown to expect over the last four years of my residence here. But still they do not cry out of fear, for the fear in me seems to be buried so deep by the raging hand to hand combat of emotions that none are able to make it out alive and to the surface to breathe.

My roommate asked me today how I was feeling about my departure and move after I told her that I had finally purchased a one-way ticket to JFK. I tried to answer and realized that I could not answer honestly because when I asked myself that question there was no answer. So I lied. I told her I felt nothing but excitement. The truth is I am experiencing that frequent phenomenon in which there is so much to feel that it is easier to feel nothing at all, and thus all possible emotions have been transferred to other accounts, and I am looking towards June 21st, the arrival of my one way ticket, with the same coolness as if I were departing on a three day fishing trip instead of an uprooting, life changing, momentous day. 

The one emotion I seem to have no difficulty feeling is the one causing the majority of the puffiness, the impending separation from a man I have grown to care deeply about. Still, it is not the move to New York that is the cause, to be particular, because I seem to be able to speak the sentence, "In three weeks I am moving," with surprising ease. These words do not make me happy or sad. I think that instead it is the realization that soon nearness to him will be impossible, and I am scared of regret. It will feel like the snapping of a wishbone where no one wins and no one's wishes come true. 

There are things however, which I can picture so clearly about my new life in NYC. It is only when I begin to doubt my abilities to succeed in closing the achievement gap that I feel like a child with an overwhelming science project that has no choice but to take home first prize. I have no choice but to succeed because this thing that I am doing is as much about me as it is about the students, the US educational system, the achievement gap, the future success of Teach for America, and those who are supporting me through this challenge. I picture myself standing before eager looking students presenting some perfectly crafted and shockingly creative lesson plan that results in never before seen success and then I open my eyes to wonder if I can do it. I wonder if I can do something that hasn't been done, something to change the reality that African Americans are half as likely as white students to earn a bachelor's degree by age 29, and Latino students are only one third as likely (Haycock, 2001). Thus, I have started this blog as a story, hoping that some may follow me through this pursuit, widen their knowledge of the educational reality in America, and be inspired to take steps of their own. 

I realize that I know nothing of what is soon to come (besides humidity) as I write this opening message, but two years from today I hope to end my words with confidence that at the very least I have learned something for America. 

Haycock, Kati. (2001). Closing the Achievement Gap. Educational Leadership, 58 (1).