This article nails why we teachers who entered the profession - the right way -are offended by almost every premise of legitimacy TFA (Teach For America) puts forth. On my end I decided to be a teacher in my 30s and spent 2 full years and over 30k at DePaul to get the Ed work completed. Two grueling, marriage testing, financially draining, sanity questioning and intimately transformative years. (Liked it so much I went back and did the same thing for my MA at DePaul) On the other hand, TFA turns out trainees with 5 weeks of training being taught by other teachers who also have 5 weeks of training, who are told they are superior to, basically, ME, and then being sent to some of the most challenging environments (high poverty classrooms) ON THE PLANET. This is insanity. And horribly unfair to children who need someone highly trained and ready to deal with reality on the ground. TFAs (Teach For A year) last a year or two on average, horribly underserve their classrooms and then leave for real jobs. Wanna know why charters underperform their public counterparts? They are usually staffed with large amounts of TFAers. Id start looking for answers there.
Posted on: Fri, 17 Oct 2014 17:15:42 +0000