The Onion: Point/Counter Point on Teach for Americ

[joenali]

Point/ Counter Point on Teach for America. This is great!

www.theonion.com/articles/my-year-volunteering-as-a-teacher-helped-educate-a,28803/

[emmybean]

NO ONE SHOULD HAVE EVEN CRACKED A SMILE AT THIS SCATHING SATIRE OF AMERICA'S YOUNG TEACHERS.

SATIRE IS NOT FUNNY. IT IS MEANT ONLY TO SCATHE.

[sporklemotion]

Love this!

[summer]

Like

[ESF]

Just once, it would be nice to walk into a classroom and see a teacher who has a real, honest-to-God degree in education and not a twentysomething English graduate trying to bolster a middling GPA and a sparse law school application


:-(

[Deleted]

I didn't find this funny like most Onion articles... sometimes the truth just hurts.

I wouldn't want my kids to have a brand new teacher every year. One or two in 12 years yes, but a recent college every year, no way

[Deleted]

This is fanfuckingtastic. I have had a problem with Teach for America for this very reason for a long time. Throwing enthusiastic grads with a few brains into classrooms doesn't solve the problem of shitty schools in low income areas.

I say this understanding that the entire system is jacked and many districts deal with high turnover anyway. But this really isn't the solution.

[Deleted]

Lol I agree with a lot of it. I do not like TFA. I think they mean to do well, but they don't.

[marie427]

So does TFA prepare its teachers for teaching careers or do they just hire these teachers with no expectation that they'll remain in teaching and thus don't provide much professional development? I have no problem with TFA, NYC Teaching Fellows program (if it's still around), etc. hiring people who actually want to become teachers and understand the reality that kids are not going to be lifted from poverty because they're teaching them.

[Deleted]

No expectation Marie. The goal is two years. That's it. I believe the average they stay in is 3 years. I used to help hire and they actually do NOT want career teachers. That is not the goal. That is the biggest issue. Other programs through The New Teacher Project are trying to create career teachers from Alt Cert. (like the various Fellows Programs which IMO are the best) TFA is not. Its a resume builder for most of the kids unfortunately.

[marie427]

Jul 18, 2012 6:43:14 GMT -5 @irishbride said:

No expectation Marie. The goal is two years. That's it. I believe the average they stay in is 3 years. I used to help hire and they actually do NOT want career teachers. That is not the goal. That is the biggest issue. Other programs through The New Teacher Project are trying to create career teachers from Alt Cert. (like the various Fellows Programs which IMO are the best) TFA is not. Its a resume builder for most of the kids unfortunately.

That's what I thought but wanted to be sure, thanks. How frustrating.

[Deleted]

I do believe the founders and those who run it are well intentioned. I really really really do. And they do make strides in the classroom. But there are aspects that they are going about in an incorrect way, and its frustrating that they are held up as the elite of the teaching world.

[Deleted]

I think TFA is a really good idea in theory but obviously the idea has flaws. I can see and understand the criticisms against it and I think it's slightly problematic to send young, inexperienced and relatively untrained teachers into some of the worst schools in the country.

My best friend from college did it and is still teaching as are most of the other people she started teaching with (other TFAers). They've all gone to charter schools in the area now and some are administrators and one started some type of teaching nonprofit. She's in Philadelphia so I imagine it has not been a cakewalk. But she is one who graduated college not really knowing what she wanted to do and she has ended up loving teaching, but for her TFA wasn't necessarily a stepping stone to something else, because she wasn't sure of her next step.