My Favorite SEF Orientation Panel.

I found about about the Mississippi Teachers Corps (MTC) through the Southern Education Foundation (SEF). The Southern Education Foundation is a not-for-profit foundation created in 1937 with the main goal of promoting quality education for traditionally disadvantaged students, including the poor and African Americans. SEF has a Southern Education Leadership Initiative (SELI) in which college students from Southern states have an opportunity to learn about the historical and contemporary issues of Brown and to become involved in effective efforts to reform and improve Southern education.

What the SELI program actually does is bring interns to Atlanta for an orientation on issues in education, past and present, then send the interns out for a summer internship with other not-for-profit organizations. During the orientation many speakers come and talk with the interns in panels of three people with a similar topic. From 8am until roughly 9pm for a little less then a work week with breaks for lunch and 15 minutes between each panel we are in a professional setting, learning and asking questions. I drank coffee for the first time in years in order to keep up.

The panels are very informative, and with issues from philanthropy to the role of courts and policy makers in achieving equity being discussed there is something of interest for everyone. This blog is on my favorite panel of the orientation. My favorite panel was the MTC panel, which was entitled "Insights into Rural Education in Mississippi."

It may seem cheesy now that I'm interning here, but its true. A movie named Lalee's Kin was shown first. It showed the struggle of one matriarchal family to survive, and one school to do the same. It was powerful, beautiful, and depressing in different combinations throughout. I highly recommend the movie. Afterwards the personal stories started.

Mr. Ben Guest who was mentioned in my first post, along with two MTC alumni, Ms. Ashley Johnson and Ms. Danielle Hall all told stories about their favorite students. There was a presentation with pictures of the students and classes. The stories were even more poignant because there were people telling their own stories right there, directly to us. All had sad parts, some had semi sad endings, all were inspirational. One of the presenters began to cry while telling her story. Stories that inspire the mind and break the heart.

I found the MTC session to be the most moving and affecting panel during the orientation, and since it affected me the most personally, It became my favorite. See? No bias there. The next day I headed out to Mississippi.