Teach For Making a Difference

Inequality in education is hard to deny, though many choose to ignore it. In this election year, candidates on both sides of the aisle have spoken to the education gap, but attention to this issue has never lasted long.

It’s easy, after all, to look at and to talk about the statistics on the 13 million children growing up in poverty, about half of whom will graduate from high school. Those who do graduate will, on average, perform at an eighth-grade level. Nine-year-olds growing up in low-income communities are already three grade levels behind their peers in high-income communities. I joined Teach For America in 2006 because I didn’t want to ignore these disparities. I believed that our educational system didn’t have to be this way.

The day before I began teaching, I met with the principal and learned that I would be the only English teacher for the entire 10th-grade class. The students were currently being watched—not taught—by a long-term substitute, and the administration of the school was concerned that there would be no teacher assigned to the position. The principal was enthusiastic about the fact that these students now had a teacher, and I was plagued by anxiety about the next day. I went home, took a deep breath, made some posters of my rules and consequences, laid out my most teacher-ly outfit, and contemplated the enormity of the task in front of me. Could I really do this?

The idea that we as corps members can lead our students to significant academic gains in spite of the obvious obstacles inherent in our placement districts is an intimidating one. It is easy to be skeptical about the effects that young, recent college grads—few with any background in education—can have in the classroom.

For me, this skepticism didn’t go away when I began teaching. My students were reading and writing well below grade level. Many students couldn’t read much more than a page at a time and struggled to write an essay of more than a page. Those who wrote more than a page didn’t write in paragraphs, and essays of one page in length frequently consisted of two or three very long run-on sentences.

In those beginning weeks, I struggled—students wouldn’t listen, no one did their homework, I couldn’t get kids to read, no one would stay in his or her seat, kids were punching each other and tearing pages out of books, and my kids couldn’t hear me over their own voices combined with the boiler and the air conditioner. There were days when I went home and cried, called my mother, and thought about quitting.

But I didn’t. I was going to do this no matter how much I struggled, and after a month or so I began to see the effects of my hard work. It started with my students’ attitudes. They saw how much I cared about them and, by seeing my personal investment in them, they became invested in their own success. They started to complete their work regularly and participate in class more frequently. Students began staying for lunch and after-school tutoring, and I often received evening phone calls and e-mails asking for help with their homework. They saw their own progress and my exhilaration at their success, and they became more and more excited about succeeding in English. I pushed and I pushed, and they responded despite regular complaints that I was “too hype.”

By the end of last year, my students had read To Kill a Mockingbird, Twelve Angry Men, and Julius Caesar—three texts that were far above my students’ abilities at the beginning of the year. Most students willingly wrote essays analyzing characters in literature and comparing texts. This year, students are reading novels independently and working on five- to seven-page research papers. We have a reading and writing day on Fridays during which students can read books of their choice and write in journals about whatever they please—many ask if it’s okay if they write in their journals outside of class.

I am now teaching the same students as 11th-graders. I still have bad days, and my students are still behind. Even so, they are, for the most part, as dedicated as I am to their achievement. No matter what, my kids will leave my classroom knowing that hard work—in whatever they do—results in success. They know, like I do, that even if they don’t go to a four-year college, success in high school can and will change the trajectory of their lives.

We can and we will make a difference—one day, all children in this nation will have the opportunity to attain an excellent education. Our nation’s underprivileged students need your dedication, your brilliance, and your idealism. Please join me and thousands of others in the movement to end educational inequity.

The author is a member of the Columbia College class of 2006. She currently teaches high school English in Philadelphia through Teach For America.