"A child's learning is the function more of the characteristics of his classmates than those of the teacher." James Coleman, 1972

Saturday, July 09, 2016

If You Are Thinking about Teach for America, Watch This

1 comment:

  1. Excellent. You wanted to teach in LA with students who were like you, but TFA placed you in Mississippi. I can see that's a problem and as you've said it should have been a red flag. When not in TFA, after the credential is received, young teachers look to work in areas where they feel called to teach. I grew up in Oakland, California, and always like a child teacher coming up with ideas for the kids in my neighborhood to play. In junior high and high school I was part of the diversity that has always been part of Oakland's greatness. After graduating college in 1973 with a BA in Graphic Arts, I did not go into teaching, it somehow didn't happen then, but in 1986, eight months after my daughter was born I changed careers to become a teacher. I took the 18 months of education and student teaching and started with great enthusiasm. After my first year, I was exhausted, drained, and disenchanted. The vice-principal in my school gave me a great gift. She said, "Take all your altruistic feelings and place them in your heart and start dealing with reality?" It took me about ten years to become the teacher I wanted to be. I've been teaching now for 27 years, and still love it. I hope you'll be able to eventually teach in LA. You might want to take the normal route teachers take who don't go the TFA route. BTW, thank you very much for your thoughts and feelings.

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