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[–]melikeybouncy 189 points190 points  (4 children)


Warning: not entirely relevant

As a former inner-city school teacher, who was trained as a teacher, the fact that programs like Teach For America exist is incredibly insulting. Imagine if there was an "Engineer for America" program where they hired a bunch of former nurses and accountants to design bridges or electrical grids. It's like saying: "Your job is so easy, anyone can do it better than you." Bullshit. I worked with three TFA "teachers" and none of them had a clue. Their classrooms were always out of control and they were always coming up with "fun projects" that had no educational value and weren't developmentally or instructionally appropriate for the students. 2/3 cried in front of their classes.

TL;DR: Teach for America blows.

EDIT: I started that sentence saying "You're so bad at your job..." deleted back to the you're then changed where I was going. Whatever, stupid mistake, I don't expect reddit to forgive. Also, I'm still a teacher, just not in a public school, and my typo-avoidance skills are irrelevant when it comes to teaching civics.

[–]smc08005 0 points1 point  (3 children)


My brother does TFA in Phoenix, from what he says the school district he is in is terribly run and understaffed . His classes average between 30-42 kids (went to public school in NY, classrooms averaged around 25 kids) so this seems like a lot. Yeah I understand that you would dislike the program because it kind of undermines what you did for your college degree, but TFA mostly places kids in school districts that most education majors don't want. That being said he had to take qualification exams and was examined in a classroom setting multiple times before being hired. Then they graduate college are given a very shortened summer break, about three weeks if I remember for him, and go through training until school starts. Then while teaching during the year he also (not sure if required for all) was going to school for his masters in education. Now, his students, 7th and 8th grade math, were very unprepared because the 6th grade math teacher was tenured and "didn't teach them" (students words), the 7th grade teacher before him was equally as bad from what he has been told. So he would be dealing with 3 different math skill levels in each class, which as you would imagine is pretty hard and trying to express to a kid the importance of this stuff is even harder. Anyway he went through his first year winning a teacher of the year award at the school and second year while still having the option to leave at anytime. There was also a private school that took kids from the inner city on scholarship if they applied and were accepted to which he got a few of them into (helping with/initiating the application process) because he actually saw potential in these kids and wanted to help. So I think he went above what was expected of him and helped out these kids when someone else gave up on them. He still could have left after his second year and after receiving his masters but stayed and is currently in his third year. So you may dislike the program and have had negative experiences with it and people do leave quickly after starting cause they aren't truly ready for it. But there are others out there who try and make a difference and take the jobs others don't want and I respect my brother a hell of a lot more for going to a state on the other side of the country with very small network of friends and making the most of it. If you went to school for real estate and became a real estate sales person would you deplore someone who got licensed in a few months? Probably not.

[–]melikeybouncy 0 points1 point  (2 children)


You're right, and even though I dislike the program, I'm sure they have success stories like your brother. I guess I should give some context, the teachers that I'm talking about were assigned to a school that had new teachers every year. The school had recent college grads applying every year with the same level of dedication and concern for student achievement that the TFA workers claimed they had. The difference is that teaching well, specifically in a difficult format, requires some specialized knowledge that can't be taught in a 6 week course over the summer. To be honest, having three instructional math levels in an inner city school would be a piece of cake compared to what your brother was probably actually dealing with. Differentiated instruction in an inner city school means planning and implementing a specialized lesson for just about ever student in your classroom. Your brother obviously is able to show his students that he cares about their education, and that makes a world of difference, but he would have been better prepared if he had significant formal training in pedagogy, brain based learning, inclusion and differentiation. In these environments, there's not a lot of room for mistakes.

[–]smc08005 0 points1 point  (1 child)


Yeah I hear ya, of course if his major was education he would have been better prepared. One of my friends currently in their senior year even teaches in a grade school near the college, so she absolutely has great hands on learning and will be better acclimated for when she is doing it outside school (college, sorry if that is confusing). Its hard for me to imagine someone who is getting their degree in education to be willing to take a job out in a completely different environment without testing the waters in their own school district where they live. So I think a bunch of these kids sign up for TFA to help themselves out when applying for grad school in their undergrad degree without fully recognizing how hard it will be. Not sure how your district is but the school my brother teaches in is horrible, they have detention once a week so there is a limit to the punishment for not behaving, (he puts out his own money for supplies around his room, pencil sharpener, chalk, even notebooks for some kids). So he puts in a good amount of effort and is met with responses like when he was trying to get a girl to do work and her response was "no" leading to the eventual "this isnt important" and then she just goes "I just wanna have a baby." Whose gonna take care of the baby? Her response was "the government". For me if I heard that from an 8th grader I would be very taken back so you could imagine how difficult it is when your are going up against that kind of mentality and I'm sure you've faced situations similar yourself. Anyways thank you for responding, didn't want to come across as a dick but it did get my blood to boil a little. Also sorry if there are grammar mistakes/misspelt words, kind of rushing through this, studying for finals myself. Bout to get off reddit for the night.

[–]melikeybouncy 0 points1 point  (0 children)


Yeah, paying for supplies is pretty standard. We even had a limit on the number of copies we could make, once we hit our cap for the semester, we had to pay for them ourselves. I'm sure he has some even better stories than those that you're sharing. Good luck on your finals.