Sunday, November 11, 2012

Teach For America


The readings and podcast for this coming week really made us sit back and think about Teach for America, and what kind of work it is actually doing.  Maddy raises a great point at the end of her post about how misleading the title of Teach for America really is.  When you hear the words “Teach for America”, you would assume that there was no way that a single negative thing could come from this program and the work that it does.  An individual that is not informed on this program, or our education system will see this title and probably think that it is a great cause, and that it is benefitting our students and our youth, when in reality they could not be more wrong.  The readings for this week enable us to take a look at individuals who have been in the program and have had experiences that everyone should know about before they assume that TFA is helping these children.

            Where is the biggest problem when it comes to TFA? Is it the assumptions that society makes regarding the program? It is the unsuccessful training that these teachers are getting? Or could it be the fact that the students in these schools lives are being handle with such recklessness? I’m going to go with all of it.  It was stated throughout the entire Darling-Hammond article how teachers who were in the program felt as though they were completely unprepared, and they were fully aware that their students were paying the price.  To add to this, as Monica stated, graduates often use the program of TFA as a stepping-stone as a way of “gaining experience”, and then heading off on another path that has nothing to do with teaching.  So we see here that the investment and passion is already missing from this young group of people.  The message we are sending to these students and to the communities in which they live, is that even though these teachers probably won’t ever teach again, they know more than you do, so you are essentially lucky to have them in the picture.  Margaret Bradley, principal of P.S. 223 discusses her disappoint with the TFA individuals, “I though that these were really bright students who wanted to make a difference, but I found it to be just the opposite in terms of their commitment.” (Darling-Hammond, 25)  Not only was there a lack of preparation, but there for the most part was a disconnect on a personal level from the TFA recruits and teachers with the location in which they were placed.  And the training was definitely not helping this situation, as Thomas Popkewitz discussed after studying the program its first year. “In TFA training, distinctions were drawn between the normal child who succeeded in schooling and the child of color-who became the ‘other’: the one who lacked motivational attributes, behavioral characteristics, and self-esteem to succeed.” (Darling-Hammond, 25) And here we have our answer to the way that society views our students; and we want to place the blame on them for not having agency.  These kids are being written off before they even get a chance to be something.  Darling-Hammond discusses on page 27, that this disconnect between the TFA teachers and students could stem from the fact that because the training program for TFA does not actually set these individuals up for success in the classroom, they often fall back on the ways in which they were taught.  This is problematic because there is no acknowledgment that these kids are not only living in a different environment, with different situations, but also that each students learns differently from the person next to them. (27)

Regardless of whether or not the intentions were there, good or bad, TFA has only perpetuated the idea of neoliberalism in society.  With the help of this program, the negative stereotypes continue to cycle throughout our country, a privileged, white, elite, individual has all of the answers for a community of people that they do not even know, or would care to get to know.  Wendy Kopp refuses to allow TFA to be truly analyzed, which alone should a be a red flag, that even she, the founder of TFA knows that something is not right. (Darling-Hammond, 22)  When it comes down to it, our students are what matter, and programs like Teach for America are not only not benefitting these children and students, but causing serious detriment to their education and youth.

9 comments:

  1. I think that it is especially difficult to counter the positive connotation associated with TFA, especially considering we are the educated students that the program usually appeals to. Alyssa points out the various ways in which TFA is less than effective and often even negatively impacting students. One of the comments that Darling-Hammond mentions a few times is the extreme disconnect that TFA teachers experience because of a lack of proper preparation for the field. Darling-Hammond writes, “In fact, people who learn effortlessly and have had no training in how to deliberately create learning strategies often find themselves at a loss as teachers” (24). I think that this is a very valid point to consider. Some of the worst teachers I remember in high school weren’t ineffective because they were unknowledgeable, it was just the fact that they weren’t able to share their knowledge in ways that resonated with their students. This lacking technique is just one of the major consequences impacting the teaching of TFA members. As is true with many of the other discussions and readings we’ve had in class, TFA perpetuates a neoliberalist agenda that perpetuates American society. And once again, one of the greatest battles is opposing the discourse and rhetoric that makes many educational reforms and agendas appear like beneficial changes to the system.

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  2. This class has greatly changed my understanding of Teach for America. As Alyssa and Maddy discuss, the title of the program is misleading. Before taking this class, I imagined Teach for America as a program that accepts bright college graduates who are dedicated to becoming successful teachers. I had only heard about Teach for America through a few friends who were recently accepted into the program. I agree with Alyssa in that people see this title and hear about the program, and then immediately think it’s a great cause. In reality, we now know that Teach for America benefits smart, well-off college graduates rather than low-income students. Graduates who join Teach for America are for the most part not interested in teaching careers. They commit to teaching for two years and then move on to professions in fields such as law or business. The podcast discusses how Teach For America even tailors the program to fit the interests of its members. Teach for America doesn’t serve the educational needs of urban children and only leads to more inequality in our society.
    I have a friend who was just accepted to Teach for America to teach middle school math in Dallas. My friend is interested in teaching underprivileged children in inner cities for the rest of her life. When she begins, I think she will have a very similar experience as Neha did from This American Life. She will discover the real mission of Teach for American and will find that she is not prepared to teach the students. I think that Teach for America could make changes to the program that could help those who are interested in becoming teachers. For example, members could be given a longer and more intensive training session. Teach for America could also hold its members to a contract for more than 2 years in order to attract only those who want to become teachers. However, we have learned that Teach for America in reality is an organization that does not strive to educate low-income students and does not create more equal opportunities in our education system.

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  3. While I dont think TFA was created to harm students, I think that overtime it became less effective and as a result damages the potential of students. In the Darling-Hammond article, she points out that TFA does not promote professional development.
    In any other career professionalism is required, but for teachers this type of concern for professionalism is not stressed. For example, college grads interested in becoming surgeons cannot simply join a program and be able to operate on people; knowledge and skill is needed in order for this to happen. In America, teaching is not looked at as job that requires years of study. I think this is the main problem with the program. Privileged college grads, who are smart and probably do want to help inner city students, are encouraged to explore their options in the "professional" world. Essentially what happens is that they get to experiment on other peoples children. I think that if the program sought to recruit students who intend on teaching as a career and provided them with training to help them be better teachers its would benefit the children and the professional development of the teachers.
    It is troublesome that Kopp is unwilling to understand how her program has contributed to the problems in the education system. This lack of cooperation is exactly what has contributed to the broken system. People who think they know best seem to be the ones able to control how students should learn. Hopefully the students who are part of TFA can understand the effects that this program has on the students who are already at a disadvantage.

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  4. Teach for America was something that I first heard when I was in high school. I thought of it as something that people did with the good of their hearts. Having read these two articles, I now know that Teach for America is a program that is opposite of what I imagined. The readings shined light on the numerous problems with Teach for America. The most shocking finding was how many graduates of the program do not even go into teaching. I made the assumption, like many others, that people who go through this program must become teachers, but for TFA, that is not the case. Most people use it as a way to gain experience and rep and then move onto another career. This underlies a problem with the program because people should be hired with aspirations to becoming a teacher. Hiring people that only use it as a stepping-stone does not help the kids and does not help America. People are not teaching for American but rather are teaching for themselves. Another thing that bothered me about teach for America were its designated number of TFA hired teachers. There are schools that hire a certain number of TFA every year, and having read Hartman, I noticed that some teachers lack the quality to even be teachers. People should not be hired just based on their credential but rather should be hired on what they can contribute to the school. This thus make me see TFA as program that works well with the name but in reality it far from it actually says it is. These days, what isn’t?

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  5. What I think is most interesting about Teach For America is the perception is holds with those who are applying. I do not want to generalize for every TFA applicant, but it has been my experience that the graduates applying for this program often only are interested in TFA to use it as a resume builder. The most important quality of any type of teacher is passion for their career, if TFA teachers already have one foot out the door the program is doomed for failure. Moreover, the fact that TFA does not denounce this behavior is even more disheartening. This just shows the continued neoliberalist threads woven in society. It will be tough for American education ever to succeed with programs like TFA.

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  6. When I first took a look at Teach for America I thought that it was a great way to help under privileged kids. In High School I had a teacher who did Teach for America and we would often talk about her experience there. She would tell me that she along with a couple of other teacher were there to actually accomplish their goals of helping kids, and that they had aspirations of being teachers in the future. As for the other teachers who were just there to “Resume build”, she said it was almost like they were buying their time until a new opportunity came along. After reading the reading for this week it is clear to me that if there were more people who actually did the program for the right reasons, than there would be many more successful students. I feel like TFA in a way is almost continued that system of under preparing students simply because there are some teachers who don’t care. Now this is a point of view of me from the outside looking in, but this is what I have learned and read about and I think a lot of my peers would agree with me. I think the best thing for TFA to do is find those people who actually will care about the students and the profession they are in and it will get better results.

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  7. I want to give Americans the benefit of the doubt but the more I read and listen to things that our country does I become more pessimistic. Alyssa does a great job pointing out the wording of "Teach for America". The creators of the program are very good marketers and quite intelligent. I also like Pats point about the program and I agree completely. If you have one foot in the door and one foot out how much do you really care about "troubled" youth?
    Margaret Bradley's quote really struck me deep. “I though that these were really bright students who wanted to make a difference, but I found it to be just the opposite in terms of their commitment” (Darling-Hammond, 25). This makes me question not only "teachers" motives who apply but our entire higher education system. Even students who are being "prepared" to become future teachers, how prepared are they? If you are working in a broken system with such much emphasis on testing how can you be trained to become a teacher. I mean anybody with a brain can hand out a test and monitor it. Where do you attack first? Honestly, I dont know. On a lighter note shout out to my boys Pat and Bubz, WE DA CHAMPS BABY!!!

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  8. Basically, the idea of experimenting on children is sick. And that's what TFA has been doing. Completely adult-centered, it disregards what is best for the children- not only ideologically, but on a personal level, Wendy Kopp didn't even mention impact on students as an issue in her conversation with Darling-Hammond (23). What is wrong with the education realm when one of the leading programs is so utterly unconcerned with student welfare? How can it be acceptable to throw people into schools based on no more than a brief boot camp, especially when the duration of the program will have them leaving the schools around the time that they're actually getting any sort of handle on teaching (assuming that they stay on that long)? How does such a program manage to survive, and even thrive? For one thing, it tells applicants that they are special, elite, and qualified to do something which takes normal people years to be prepared for. For another, according to "The Sham of Teach for America Pt 1", they get their teachers in schools through contracts and unequal application processes. And, perhaps most significantly, they capitalize on the neoliberal mindset which permeates today's conception of education, focusing on things like accountability through standardized testing and the ultimate outcome of student achievement as measured through standardized testing. With these ideas already dominating popular discourse today, it's no wonder that TFA has been so successful. Sadly.

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  9. When thinking about Teach for America I feel the biggest problems stem from the assumptions made by our society. Someone who does not know much about Teach for America would see it as a positive program that is placing some of our countries smartest young people in the classroom with children living underpriveledged lives. They would not see how this could be the least bit controversial due to the fact that these young people will have positive impacts on these children due to their own intelligence. I find this very hard to believe and feel it completely undermines the job of a teacher. The biggest assumption associated with this is that anyone who has a good GPA can teach. In my opinion teaching is not something that any one with a good GPA can do, but is rather something that requires a unique skill set.

    Another thing that is important when thinking about Teach for America is who is truly benefiting from this program. Unfortunately, I feel this program is one ultimately benefits the teachers and not the students. The teachers are able to make a great addition to their resumes after teaching these underpriveledged students, and the students consequently get taught by teachers who go through unsuccessful training. I really do feel that Teach for America had an honest objective in mind when forming this program, however I find it unfortunate that the students are once again the ones who get the short end of the stick.

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