We’ve spent a significant amount of time in class discussing the Teach For America program. This is relevant considering we are also reading Brill’s Class Warfare which includes several accounts from former TFA members. As an education major, TFA is something that has always interested me, and that I had always wished I knew more about. Having read most of Brill’s book, I am beginning to wonder if the program is as great as I once thought.
Don’t get me wrong, the program has some very strong positives. For starters, it seems as though the recruiting process for TFA is very effective. They target some of the highest-achieving colleges in the nation, so they generally have a pretty good group of students to “pick” from. TFA also seems to attract many young students with fresh perspectives on education reform, looking to affect positive changes in failing districts.
However, I still have some reservations with the program. A common theme I noticed in Brill’s book was that many of the TFA teachers left the actual teaching profession and pursued a career in the political sphere of education reform. While there are definitely some advantages to this, it also means that some of our best teachers are no longer out in the field doing what they do best – teaching. It seems to be a cycle of a teacher coming in hoping to affect change and help students, and then realizing that they often lose the students after their year with them is over. Upon seeing this pattern, it seems as though the teachers often look to politics in order to affect change.
I make this speculation with some reservation, however, because I would venture a guess and say that the TFA teachers Brill mentions are not representative of the general TFA population. In other words, I have a feeling the TFA teachers he chooses to include in his book are exceptional teachers, and have a passion for the political aspect of education reform. I can’t imagine he would include many TFA teachers who stayed in the teaching profession – they are probably the majority.
Comments
6 responses to “A Deeper Understanding of Teach For America”
You are touching the edges of a heated debate about the effectiveness of TFA. On the one side you have talented students going into communities that have profound needs. On the other hand these folks have little training and only see teaching as a stepping stone to other professions.
How could traditional teacher training programs benefit from examining the way TFA does its work? How can education be made into a profession that draws the top talent and keeps them there? Maybe we can come up with some new ideas?
I too am completely torn on my feelings toward TFA. For all the reasons you mentioned above, TFA is an amazing step in education reform, yet still has its drawbacks. I think the main difference between TFA success and the traditional teacher training shortcomings is that of applicant pool they recruit from. That being said, I would argue that the teaching profession itself may be the problem and not traditional training. What I mean by this is that if teachers received a higher salary (comparative to other elite professions) and had a more respect from society then perhaps top talent would be drawn to the teaching profession from the get-go and stay in the profession.
McKenzie, I definitely agree with you that one of the largest problems we face in education reform is the way the profession of teaching compares to other professions. What is, realistically, the most important job in our country is neither seen nor compensated as such. Now, that is not to say that the only thing I would like to see happen is a salary boost in teaching professions; it’s not the kind of profession I would want people going into for the money. However, I think it would help in attracting more college students from top tier schools (similar to the way TFA works). What I struggle with deciding is where to draw the line between providing teachers with a worthy salary of the work they do, but making sure this doesn’t become the sole motivator in someone deciding to follow this career path. In my opinion, being an exceptional teacher doesn’t exactly come from a drive that is primarily motivated by a hefty salary.
To comment on some of the discussion that has already taken place, I too feel that TFA is an extremely controversial group. I would most certainly agree on the comments stated previously, both by McKenzie and Zac. One further issue I would like to examine with TFA (and hiring effective teachers, more generally) deals with something McKenzie discussed. That is, the idea that the training for teachers seems to be so lackluster. In what, as many have already stated, should be regarded as the most important profession in our country, we have what seems to be a very poor and ill-fitting method of teacher training. I think one of the sources of this comes from something both Zac and McKenzie mentioned, and that is the problem with not necessarily regarding teaching as a true profession, on the same level as one might view an engineer. If we do not view teaching as a highly specialized and intensive career, we will not recognize the need to provide aspiring teachers with the same style of rigorous training that many engineering students are provided. It is not enough to sit a teacher-to-be through a couple slideshow presentations about basic teaching methodology and throw them in a classroom for a little while without really getting into the nitty-gritty of what goes on in a class of struggling, unmotivated students.
I agree with the preceding posts about TFA’s mixed qualities and the necessity for teaching to become a more desirable profession. I am not an education major, and I don’t know specifics about teaching certification or degree programs in different colleges and different states. That being said, I know education majors here at Bucknell who have done a semester of student-teaching in a local school, alongside a veteran teacher. I think that this kind of hands-on experience, especially in a field like teaching, is by far the best way to learn the profession. As Brill mentions with several TFA alumna, many methods of teaching must be developed by creativity and trial and error. A student-teaching program gives future teachers the ability to see what works and doesn’t work in a real classroom setting, while still being under the supervision and guidance of someone with experience.
I think that success of TFA speaks to many highly intelligent students who have a desire to become a teacher, but see little reward in actually doing so. In other words, the benefits to doing TFA are that the program is highly esteemed, and leads to great opportunities in the future. However, students wouldn’t take on such a challenging task of teaching underprivileged children ins they weren’t actually interested in becoming a teacher.
While its easy to point the finger at TFA students and call them greedy for wanting to leave the teaching profession after two years, the reality is that with such a strong degree from a prestigious institutions, expectations (and desired salary) are greater than simply becoming a teacher.