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don’t play that,” she replied.
    â€œYeah, right,” I thought. “You don’t know my kids.”
    I scurried through the door and down the stairwell into the meeting room. After approximately sixty mind-numbing yet strangely joyful minutes, the meeting was over, and I headed back to my room. I walked slowly, steeling myself for reentry. When I got a few feet away from my classroom door, I paused. Oddly, there was no noise coming from the room. No screaming, no yelling, no crashes.
    â€œDid she take them outside?” I wondered.
    I walked into the room and was startled to see my entire class hard at work. They were copying down on their paper sentences that the librarian had written on the board. The librarian was sitting at my desk, leafing through a pamphlet, cracking her gum.
    â€œUh . . . how were they?” I asked, with some trepidation.
    â€œOh, they were great. Just great. Weren’t you, children?” she asked.
    â€œYes, Ms. Blackwell,” they singsonged in unison.
    Ms. Blackwell picked up her purse and headed out the door. She hadn’t even crossed through the door when my kids started up again. They were yelling at each other, hitting one another, and throwing things across the room in record time.
    â€œWait a minute!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.
    Interestingly, the children ceased fire long enough to hear my plea.
    â€œCan someone please explain to me why it is that you can behave like that for Ms. Blackwell but you can’t do that for me?” I asked.
    Anthony, one of my chief mischief makers, stood up. “It’s because she knows what she’s doing,” he said matter-of-factly. And then turned to his neighbor to resume their arm-wrestling match.
    T HE WINTER BEFORE I graduated from Cornell, while at home during break, I had a rare day off from serving sandwiches at Grumpy’s and decided to relax at home. I grabbed a Snapple and a bag of Doritos, switched on the TV in the family room, and became one with the couch.
    We had four channels in those days, and my parents must have been watching the Public Broadcasting Service station, so that’s what came on as I relaxed. The little screen showed scenes from a school where young people my age were teaching. It turned out to be a documentary on a brand-new outfit called Teach For America. That it even caught my eye was pure luck.
    One of the first scenes showed a principal taking a young guy out into the hallway.
    â€œYou’re not very good at this,” she told him. “Maybe you’re not cut out for teaching. I’m afraid I have to fire you.”
    But what really got my attention was the next scene: It showed a young Korean guy teaching science to a class of mostly African American students. He was conducting an experiment where he poured water into a tube half filled with sand and rocks. The rocks settled to the bottom first, demonstrating how heavier material settled.
    â€œHe’s really good,” I thought to myself. “Here’s this nerdy Korean guy rocking it in the classroom. I figured he’d be the one getting fired.”
    Back at Cornell, I started to see posters for TFA information sessions. They showed a young African American guy teaching kids. It asked: “How Can I Afford Not To Make This Work?”
    That touched my twenty-one-year-old soul. It took me back to my days volunteering in Mary Weiss’s classroom. It spoke to my father’s constant advice that we give back to the community. Perhaps I could put my newfound social consciousness to the test in the classroom. I loved being around children. I decided to give TFA a shot.
    â€œOh,” said my friend Jenny Kim. “That’s kinda weird, isn’t it?” She was being the good Korean girl, heading to med school. Many of the friends I had taken Japanese language classes with were going to Japan to take jobs in the private sector. They had taken that class with