Educate yourself

Study after study has shown that Teach for America teachers are less effective than traditionally certified teachers in their first two years of service (the amount of time most members stay in the program), but you wouldn’t know it from the increasing number of people who apply.

There are, undoubtedly, many undergraduate education programs that are not very good. But at Barnard and Columbia, students have access to an excellent program that focuses on the intellectual controversies of education: our country’s testing fetish, immigration, school and teacher accountability, “the achievement gap,” and the relationship between housing and school segregation. What becomes apparent is that the problems schools face are enormous and structural—too large for any individual teacher to solve.

Teachers who hope to make an impact are put in the precarious situation of trying to subvert a system that privileges certain students over others even while under constant pressure to perpetuate its inequities. Navigating this tension is not for the uninformed—it demands more of teachers than just showing up and being smart. This is where Teach for America misleads its candidates.

Essentially, TFA candidates are led to believe that, because of their innate brilliance (as evidenced by their good grades), they will radically impact American education by simply showing up. Now, to all of the TFA-folk reading this and getting ready to pelt me with paper airplanes, I am glad that there is some system to draw more of the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed (that’s what you are, of course) into the field of education. I wish you had just signed up for the Barnard education program instead—we would have loved to have you.

It is a testament to how our culture devalues the work of teachers that has forced us to add competition—or prestige—to the field of education. And with surface-level logic, this makes sense. Anyone who has done well enough in school to be accepted into TFA could have fulfilled the education requirements here. Yet it appeals more to achieve-aholics to have to go through the process of applying for something selective and, importantly, not a long-term commitment.

I’m sure I’m going to hear an earful of the following: “Jamie, you have it all wrong. I want to make a difference. I really care. And who knows, if I like teaching I might stay longer.” To this, I say that you cannot just waltz into a school to see if you like it, as if you were trying on shoes in a department store. Student teaching and studying education, as opposed to jumping right in with TFA, is the difference between going for a hike in the woods with a first aid kit, food, water, bug spray, and rain gear, and going out Lear-style—unadorned in a storm with nothing but your ever-increasing insanity. You learn the art of posing questions to a class so that the same five students don’t answer all the time (behavior expectations, clear phrasing, wait-time) and how to meet the needs of students with a wide range of skills (hint: it is impossible to do this if you stand in front of the room and lecture everyday). You learn that it is actually a serious problem if a student does well on written assignments but never speaks in class (they are denied the chance to learn through talk—they become invisible). You also learn that the best classroom management strategy is simply, and not so simply, to have a lesson plan that is organized and engaging, and that this involves lots of planning.

The schools that need to hire TFA teachers usually have the students who need the best teachers around, because typically these students lack essential skills. Not having the skills to write, to understand, and to argue prevents students from civic engagement, makes them victims to advertising, and severely limits their career and life opportunities. Every day of every year is critical. Consider the weight of that for a minute.

I can already tell you from my early student-teaching experiences that it is all too easy to get caught up in worrying about grades and covering material. It requires a constant presence of mind to think critically about your actions as a teacher. When you make mistakes, what will ground you is a clear philosophy of why you’re there—what you’re teaching for and against. “Teaching is never neutral,” to paraphrase Paulo Freire. The unique thing that the Barnard program will give you is the ability to locate yourself in the crossfire of American education today, to be an advocate for students and meaningful learning, not just to be a pawn in the system.

The author is a Barnard College senior. She is a writing fellow and a participant in the Barnard Education Program.