M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I

Mississippi here we come. Last night we made it official that we will be living in Mississippi or Arkansas for the next 2 years while I work there as a Spanish teacher in grades 7-12. We will be doing it as part of an organization called Teach For America.

If you haven't ever heard of TFA its main goal is to provide students with quality teachers so they can get the education they deserve. This typically occurs in locations where teachers are in high demand - urban or rural settings, our assignment is very much a rural setting. These teachers are not usually teaching majors in college, but are recruited from all majors and backgrounds. TFA works with them and the school districts to get the teachers certified in their teaching area. The TFA members aren't TFA employees, TFA just trains them and connects them with areas in need where they are paid by the school that they teach at. Also, for every year that I teach, we will receive a grant for graduate school in the future. Yearly, about 25,000 recent college graduates apply for positions within TFA and something like 3-4,000 get accepted into the program. 11% of all Ivy League graduates apply to teach for america and the average college GPA for TFA members is a 3.7. I don't have a 3.7 GPA. I do have a 3.07 GPA, so how I got in is a mystery.

Either way, whether I got accepted by accident or not, we have accepted the offer and they can't stop me now. We are really excited about it and the opportunity it will be for us. We have spent the last two weeks asking questions, talking to people in MS, meeting other BYU students who have been accepted into TFA, and praying about it and we finally came to our decision last night. It is very exciting to know what we will be doing for the next few years and exciting to be given this great opportunity. We are really happy about it.

So basically our assignment is the Mississippi delta, not to be confused with the Mississippi river delta. The river delta is where the river empties out into the ocean. The mississippi delta is the area in the northwest of the state between the mississippi river and the yazoo river. We could be placed in a school anywhere from Jackson MS to the northern edges of MS to the eastern edges of Arkansas. I will have to leave for training in early June and it will last till mid July. School starts in early August so we are figuring out the details of when we would move and all that.

While we are very excited we are going to miss everyone. We don't know anyone who lives in MS. We have met another couple who is going to the same general area as us, which is comforting, but we will have to make a lot of new friends which is exciting and a little sad. Anyway, we just wanted to let you all know our plans and let you know how excited we are.

Brent