I was an idealistic college grad in 2007, and I wanted to help people. I also wanted to be as bad ass as Michelle Pfeiffer in Dangerous Minds. I decided that the best way to do so would be to teach at a high school in the South Bronx. I joined NYC Teaching Fellows, an accelerated teachers prep program that would allow me to move into my own classroom in September, only three months after leaving the womb of undergrad.

I wasn’t ready.