Teach for America Revisited
Although I never announced it on here, after writing a column back in the spring about the merits of joining Teach for America that seemed to indicate I was actually going to put my money where my mouth was, I chose to decline their offer to teach in the D.C. metro area public school system. Unlike most people who turn down prestigious opportunities, I rejected TFA’s offer without any alternative offer on the table, and now I’m scrambling for a job.
Do I regret my decision? Not at all. I think back to the 2-3 different instances during my post-acceptance discernment when I confidently strode to the computer and put my cursor above the “Accept” button, thinking I was ready to commit to TFA, and it freaks me out. I had virtually all of my friends, my boyfriend, my U of I mentor, and my sister in one corner, consistently urging me to join TFA. In the other corner sat Augur, one or two other friends, and my parents. They were not convinced that the actual experience of teaching was something that I truly believed was right for me, regardless of the inevitable personal growth I would encounter along the way or the obvious pleasure I would take in trying to help an underprivileged group of people. Augur was convinced that there were more fitting ways to apply my talents while trying to serve the public, the 1-2 other friends were just really blunt about the fact that I did not seem like the TFA type, and my parents wanted to make sure that I was doing what I wanted to do, not what the Teach for America recruitment team suggested I do.
In the end, I agreed more with Group B. Some of my biggest “Do TFA!” cheerleaders later admitted that they were most interested in hearing all of my amazing classroom horror stories or living vicariously through my hands-on, down-and-dirty work while they did their death marches through law school. I’m pretty glad I was able to recognize some of this for what it was while it was actually happening; otherwise, Group A may have triumphed. To me, it would have been a major disservice to the kids I was supposed to be serving had I chosen to accept two years with TFA for the wrong reasons: because it was the first–and still the only–post-college job offer I had received, because a lot of people I loved happened to love the idea of me doing it, because I really only loved the idea of me doing it, or because I wanted to be able to add it to my resume. If I were to do it primarily for any of these reasons, I think it would have shown in the lack of passion for my work, and that wasn’t fair to anyone.
But that’s just me. Except that it’s not.
It’s actually the thought process of a good chunk of ambitious college seniors who apply, but right or wrong, many of them still go through the two years and have a positive impact on the lives of their students. As far as having a positive impact on the academic performance of those same students–as compared to non-TFA teachers–the debate rages on, with many education professors throughout the country siding with the TFA skeptics.
While I was in the middle of deciding what to do and after I declined, I was in touch with a reporter for the Chronicle of Higher Education. She was working a big story about Teach for America, and I got the impression that unlike most coverage I’ve seen of TFA, it wasn’t going to be solely flattering. As an ambivalent applicant and then as a confident decliner, I was obviously a desirable source for her article, and I agreed to serve as one when she asked.
The article was published last month, and you can access it here. It’s a fairly good read if you’re interested in the TFA debate, and I would say it’s reasonable in both its criticism and its praise for the organization. Since a few people have brought TFA up in various posts–Augur and Billy have, I think, and J. Prescott called it worthless or something once–I thought some of you might want to check it out and discuss.
Comment by tet on 19 July 2007 at 12:41 pm:
Thanks for writing this up, Jon. I was one of those urging you to seriously consider hooking up with this outfit, but after reading your reasons for declining, I am very proud of your self-honesty. It bodes well for your ability to fend off evil as you get involved in the cesspool of politics.
Some notes on the article:
If a prospective instructor has the personality and talent to be a good teacher, five weeks of intensive training is more than enough. If s/he doesn’t, five years would not be sufficient and would only serve to confuse the applicant.
In order to be most effective, the five weeks would have to be supplimented by self-guided independent research as well as information gathered from predecessors in the same school/neighborhood.
Therefore, I think the best suggestion that I saw in the article was to increase the committment to three years and team the first-year with another, experienced instructor. This would “weed out” some of the folks doing this merely as a resume builder and make sure that the “tribal wisdom” accrued for that particular school was retained by the program–a lot of good instruction is reactive and every school has its own unique set of circumstances.
I think the program is spending way, way too much of its budget on recruiting, however. One-third? That’s nuts. I’d have to see its internal structure to be sure, but I’d be willing to wager that there’s some serious job security going on here within the bureaucracy.
All in all, though, my opinion remains that the kind of “real world” experience that this program provides is invaluable for a person who is planning on going into the sector that will involved in providing public services. Idealism need to be confronted with a reality check, lest it overcome the common sense with which we are born.
[I will say that in my opinion, the "real world" experience should come *before* the students have paid 80k in tuition and fees. In an ideal situation, I would not allow anyone under 20 to attend university, period. This would cause a disconnect between high school and college, give the prospective student two years of real world experience and deter the one-third of college students that really don't belong in a university in the first place. In my mind, saving that third is essential, since no college is going to turn down 20k in tuition, no matter how useless the student. That bottom third comes out with all the debt and ends up as indentured servants to cubicle farms for a decade or more instead of becoming productive members of society on their own.]
Tom
Comment by J. Prescott on 19 July 2007 at 1:01 pm:
I would like to clarify, that to my recollection I don’t think I have ever called the TFA worthless. I have an adamant non-opinion of the organization.
Comment by Augur wins by Decision on 19 July 2007 at 1:14 pm:
I have mixed feelings about the program. There is an idealism about it that is attractive, albeit naive. On some level I find it insulting that we send extremely unexperienced kids into classrooms full of students with only 5 weeks of training. Although I recognize that in many cases this does improve the educational experiences of these kids, sometimes I can’t shake the notion that there is no way rich suburban parents would allow their kids to be taught by people so inexperienced. I know this objection is sound in an ideal world where equal access to quality education would be a reality, and that here, in what I like to call “realityland” these young students are in overcrowded classrooms with poorly paid teachers who often couldn’t get jobs elsewhere. Given that reality, I’m supportive of the program, though somewhat reluctantly. Tom’s suggestion about making it 3 years is a good one, and the fact that 1/3 of the budget goes to recruiting doesn’t seem to make sense.
I like that Jon had almost everyone in one corner and me and his parents in another. This is at least partially b/c I like to consider myself a heavyweight, and no billy, not just b/c I’m a “fat ass.” But egoism aside, I want to say here why I thought this wasn’t right for Jon. Part of it was I felt like he was taking the path of least resistance and just accepting the first job that came along instead of chasing destiny. In fact, to irk him, I started calling him a PoLR bear (sounds just like Polar) for Path of Least Resistance. I’m not sure if he found it persuasive, but he sure found it irritating.
Jon would be a really great congressional staffer. He has a passion for public service, some interest in policy, and he would love to be a press secretary and someday communications director/ chief of staff. Instead of teaching kids about history, by working on the Hill he can take part in making it. To me, this was just a question of resources. Jon might be better than the best person who was rejected from TFA. He might not, and if he is better, chances are he’s only marginally better, because some pretty damn good applicants get turned down for TFA. But with Jon’s unique sets of talents, I think he could be miles better than the next guy at serving a member of congress and their constituents. I think he’ll be happier too.
Comment by Jon on 20 July 2007 at 1:00 am:
J. Prescott:
Back in a thread a few months ago, “To Serve One’s Country,” Billy was talking about the need for young Americans to consider service and used the example of going and teaching in the Chicago public school system (sounds an awful lot like the concept of Teach of America), to which you replied:
“As for your first point, I also disagree. Africa and inner-city schools do not need bodies. They don’t need people aimlessly going and trying to help. They need people with skills, with a purpose and a plan. Your plan, lacks that. A bunch of kids milking goats in Africa and talking to disinterested kids in East St. Louis is going to do nothing but wast (sic) two years of the kids life and teach them little to no skills.”
That seemed like a swipe at Teach for America–maybe not TFA exclusively, but the idea of kids spending (wasting) two years in an inner city school.
Tom:
My pleasure. I always wanted to talk to you about why I decided to decline TFA’s offer and never got the chance. I agree that the first-year team teaching arrangement would be a major improvement for TFA, since so many former corps members talk about how they didn’t think they totally got the hang of teaching until the second year. I think this change could move the learning process along much more swiftly. And I think I’ll get a few “real world” experiences of my own in politics, since in addition to the inevitable excitement at various points, I’m sure I’ll witness all kinds of stomach-turning bullshit that shapes my perspective on government and the type of people who are attracted to it.
Augur:
It was never about it being the first job that was offered. It was about wanting to be someone who could say he did Teach for America for two years and coming to terms with the fact that this line of reasoning is totally irresponsible and disingenuous–which some TFA corps members probably fail to do until they’re in the middle of their teaching experience. If I truly thought that the actual teaching was something that could interest me for two years, I probably would have chosen TFA because the real world experience that Tom talked to me about still seems appealing. It just wasn’t enough to overcome my distinct lack of enthusiasm for the daily teaching routine, and I knew my heart wasn’t going to be in it.
Comment by J. Prescott on 20 July 2007 at 8:06 am:
It was this Billy Joe post that I was responding to:
1) What would make more sense would be compulsory national service, but not as you define it. Both Emerson and Peter Singer (I think Singer ripped it off of Emerson, but whatever) discuss the notion of expanding circles of empathy. Humans used to care for and favor their core families, then the circle expanded to the nomadic tribe, then to the village, then the city, then the state, then the country, etc. America has, and should be, leaning the hardest on its circle of empathy. If national service is to be compulsory, it should be doing aid work in Africa or teaching at a Chicago Public School, not becoming a sloppily trained soldier.
TFA is not a compulsory system, and therefore different from what I disagreeed with in Billy Joe’s post. Compulsory system would provide a bunch of people killing time. People who are genuinely interested in TFA and joined it would get something out of it because they would be active in it. Therefore, it is different, and my original lack of opinion still stands.
Comment by Jon on 20 July 2007 at 12:57 pm:
I know which post it was. TFA and a compulsory equivalent obviously would obviously be quite different, but I’m not sure making it compulsory would naturally lead to most people who do it shirking all personal responsibility for the education of these kids. I think the bulk of the participants, over the course of a two year compulsory commitment, would still develop a strong connection to the underprivileged kids they are being called on to serve. That’s why I didn’t consider your comment to Billy to be totally unrelated to TFA and what you might think of it. I’m glad you clarified, though.
You honestly don’t have an opinion of TFA? Most people seem to, since the organization has become such a giant force–Business Week just ranked Teach For America #10 among undergrads’ top 25 most wanted employers. I guess I just assumed that you would have an inclination of some sort.