iTAGs

Something I haven't written much about in this blog, but which has been a big part of driving my interest in teaching in Philly, is the city's wealth of activism and advocacy around school reform. Community organizing in the city involves student groups, parent groups, religious and ethnic groups, unions, and coalitions that bring them all together. And that's on top of some really amazing school-focused journalism, research, legal, and other advocacy groups.

(I may or may not have thrown a wildcard somewhere into that list, just to see if anyone paying attention.)

I'm bringing this up not just because it's awesome and important -- it's also because, if I am able to get hired in the city after leaving this program, then there's definitely some awesome organizations out there that I'll want to be connected with, not to mention some great resources to take advantage of.

Last night, I took a step in that direction, going to an event hosted by the Teacher Action Group (TAG), a coalition of educators in the city who do advocacy, teacher education, and more.


I went with a few other students from my TEP cohort (TEP was actually quite well represented, with at least a half dozen alums also present). The event was an information session and kickoff event for "iTAGs," which are small teacher groups that meet weekly to discuss topics related to education. Some of the topics for this next round include: "Leveraging Student and Faculty Voice to Improve Your School;" "Social Justice Unionism;" "Black Music as Rebellion;" "Philadelphia as Classroom;" "Social Justice Educators on the Path to Cultural Relevancy;" "Locally Relevant Mathematics;" and more (including various content area teacher meet-ups). If you're anything like me (and if you're considering this program, you're at least slightly like me), then you might find that a pretty cool list.

I'm excited to take part in these (I'm joining two) for a lot of reasons. Yes, the topics are interesting, but there's more to it than that. For one thing, it's a way to begin the whole "ongoing education" that I hope will be a part of my career as a teacher. For another, some of these topics are ones that we've touched on in our Penn classrooms -- and that I'm eager to move into real-world, practice-grounded, ongoing conversations. The final reason is more personal: when I'm an actual teacher, I know that I'm going to want to have friends who are teachers. Look, I'm not saying my regular friends aren't great. But I'm pretty sure there will be #teacherproblems aplenty that will be great to be able to chat with teachers about -- for the sake of both advice and commiseration. And, while I've been lucky to have some awesome people in my life to discuss pretty weighty issues and ideas with, it'll mean something different to be able to have that kind of experience grounded in shared practice.

Prospective students keep asking me, by the way, what I think of TEP's "cohort model." The above is a big part of my answer -- I believe that it's always great to have a group of peers whom you respect, who are all going through a closely shared set of experiences and challenges. Now if only some of us can get jobs in the area to keep that network going...