What are you doing now? What have you been doing since MTC?

I teach in an alternative learning program called East ALPs in the Burke County, North Carolina school district. We are a small program, with around 70 students on average; I am on a staff of 12 people. We are a compiliation of three separate, but related programs. The first is a traditional alternative school, accepting students with disciplinary referrals from the high school and middle schools. The second program is geared towards bringing dropouts back into the school system in a smaller, friendlier environment, and providing them with opportunities to fulfil their graduation requirements and earn a diploma rather than a G.E.D. through an outside agency. Our last program is for rising 8th graders who have failed one year in their school career, usually early in elementary school. We cover all of the eighth grade curriculum, in addition to 6 high school credits, in two semesters, effectively allowing us to discharge them back into the high school as sophomores. In essence, we operate the only elective middle school in the county, since students must apply to the program and be interviewed prior to admission.

The work in our program is good work, often challenging. The students are, for the most part, actively involved in their studies, and they are open to alternative strategies. For many of the kids, we provide a welcome contrast to the high school, with its 1500+ yearly enrollment. Many of our students just didn't feel like anyone knew them or cared about them at the middle schools (with enrollments of nearly 800 or so) or at the high school. As a faculty, it is often a struggle to provide students with the credits that they need for graduation. For instance, I am qualified to teach all high school math, all middle school math and science, and high school physics. (Most of our staff is similarly credentialled.) However, there are only three usuable periods a day for a given faculty member. This means that sometimes we end up with multiple preps in a given class period. This, as you can imagine, proves challenging at best, difficult most of the rest of the time. But our graduation rate is good, percentage-wise, and we are graduating more students each term. We have graduation in December/January and May/June, so that seniors can move on to bigger things (usually work) as soon as they have fulfilled their requirements.

In the middle school "LEAP" classes, I have recently been working to find ways to enrich the kids outside of the regular class time. We are often servants to the schedule (which schools aren't?), which means that many of our tasks revolve around bus- and cafeteria times. I have just put together a set of independent study modules for the students to complete when they have the time. The modules mirror our classroom topics, so that the students can get a little extra practice on what we're currently studying. I've also set up a games center that allows students to use any spare time to play commercially-available board games with educational and/or mathematical themes, such as Cranium (divergent thinking), chess and mancala (strategy), and Battleship (cartesian graphing), to name a few.

This year, we have cooperated with the adjacent elementary school to share a music teacher, so that the 8th/9th grade students can have music once a week. While we'd like to offer more "specials" or "exploratory" classes, we have limited time, which makes these classes difficult to justify (at least on paper...no one here questions the benefits that music, languages, athletics, or art have on the whole school experience of a student.) Nancy O'Donnell, a language arts teacher, and I are also working toward prolonging our support of the students after they have been re-enrolled in the high school. We are hopeful that we can provide services to the students even after they leave us in the form of tutoring, mentoring, and "town hall" type meetings to address their feelings and concerns about the high school.

Outside of public education, I have become very active in the Christian Education Committee of Calvary Lutheran Church in Morganton. I teach Sunday School (for 15-18 year olds), and work with the youth whenever possible. I have just begun a blog, inspired by my Sunday School class, but finding time to write entries can be somewhat challenging.

I am married to Jennifer Wilson, also a math teacher, and I have two children, Aaron (13) and Rachel (5 on October 21), and a step-son, Cole (8). When I am not chasing them around or helping them with homework, I work in the Burke United Christian Ministries Soup Kitchen, cooking evening meals from time to time for my community's homeless and working poor population. I have been to El Salvador on mission twice in the last year, and I am currently working on a book with Marvin Orellana, a friend and brother from Ilobasco, tentatively entitled, "Salvador: A Gentle Look at a Turbulent Nation." That is a slow-go, as time is a premium for us, just as it is with everyone.

What was the greatest reward of being a part of the Mississippi Teacher Corps?

MTC had many rewards for me. The first was the exposure to the people in the program--participants, faculty, and cooperating teachers. It was really great to be a part of a group with a mission, so to speak, and to wring our idealism together into a tangible thing. Another reward was the connection that MTC allowed me to kindle with my own state. Despite being from Hattiesburg, my knowledge of fellow Mississippians other than Eudora Welty and Willie Morris was, to my embarrassment, limited, at best. In my seven years of teaching in Mississippi, I outgrew the high school/college-type longing to leave my home, and I became proud. But to answer the question a little more directly, the greatest reward of being a part of MTC was most definitely the ignition of my will to serve. The things I learned as an Ole Miss grad student that summer and as a first year teacher in the Delta challenged me to work harder, to seek new avenues into action, and to embrace the people around me.

(Scott Wilson)

What was the biggest challenge?

I think the biggest challenge was the isolation. I felt as prepared as I could be by the coursework, the acculturation, and the kinship that the program offered us all, but I had never been quite that alone. Additionally, the challenges of first year teaching compounded the feelings of exile, as I had very few immediate friends with whom to share my experiences. I kept in touch with my fellow MTC participants, but day-to-day living was, at times, a little tough, and often a little depressing.

How has MTC impacted your life?

MTC has been a lasting companion for me over the years. Even though my involvement has been limited to occasional contacts with the program directors or participants, I have retained the experiences associated with my time in Oxford and Ruleville pretty well. I think often of my first classroom, and of the odd, touching, or sad experiences that I had there. About having my students show up on Halloween, and inviting them in for cokes and the tons of leftover candy. I think about having a coffee with a handful of participants and Barry Hannah. I think about the hours at Square Books, and the library (the old one, with the bizarre fractional flooring pattern, serviceable only by multiple sets of elevators.) The entire year with MTC was, if you'll excuse the cliche, an experience, and experiences are the bricks and mortar of our very existences. My life without that year would be completely different, and, I guess, quite a bit emptier. MTC taught me a lot about what it was to be a Mississippian, about what it means to help a brother or a sister out, and about why teaching is important, but good teaching is critical.

The Mississippi Teacher Corps is the most competitive teaching program in the country. The two-year program, designed for non-education majors, recruits college graduates to teach in the Mississippi Delta and offers a host of benefits, including teacher training and certification, a full scholarship for a master's degree in education, job placement that includes full pay and benefits and, most importantly, the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of students in one of the poorest areas of the country.