When first-year Teach for America corps member Scott Wolf led a lesson last week, most of his second-grade students listened attentively. One boy, however, scurried around on the floor, disrupting the room.
Wolf, Education ’04, is teaching at one of the nation’s toughest school districts in the San Francisco Bay area, so he has learned to handle these classroom interruptions.
“My big thing is to love them the most that I can and show them that I love them no matter what,” Wolf said. “They’re confused sometimes when I’m not yelling at them — and I do yell sometimes when I need to — but when I’m calm, they usually shape up pretty quickly. Every day I try to tell these kids, ‘you’re going to go to college, you’re going to go to college,’ even in second grade.”
Teach for America recruits college seniors like Wolf to devote two years after graduation to help bring a higher standard of education to underprivileged children in 22 schools across the United States. Applicants can be from any major but should have a strong leadership background coupled with persistence and determination in dealing with past obstacles, program brochures state.
The first deadline for applications is Sunday, Oct. 24. Students also can apply for the second deadline, Feb. 18, 2005, according to the program’s Web site.
Teach for America only accepts 16 percent of applicants nationwide — but the program typically accepts a higher percentage of NU graduates. Nationally, 1,600 students became corps members last year and 31 of them were from NU, said the program’s campus campaign manager, Education senior Rebecca Maltzman.
After completing the two-year commitment, many corps members continue teaching, but others move on and implement the lessons they learned in their new professions.
Many top graduate schools — including Harvard Law School and Johns Hopkins Medical School — offer two-year deferrals to their admitted students who are accepted into the program.
Angela Schneider Medill ’04 and a former Daily staffer, teaches at a school in New York City. She said corps members have to love children and be incredibly committed to make it through the two arduous years. Eighty-six percent of teachers finish their committed two-year time.
Teach for America’s goal is to make actual, significant gains with the students, Wolf said. Instead of a “survival” mentality, the program seeks to have participants truly help children develop academically to nudge them toward the right track.
Wolf, the NU alumnus, added that a common misconception is that people in poor communities don’t try hard enough. But there are many bright kids in his class who receive support from home and want to work hard, he said.
Schneider said one challenge is convincing the children she is going to stay.
“My students see a teacher who is young and I’m clearly not from New York City,” she said. “I don’t dress like them, I don’t talk like them, I’m not from the same place. I’m white. They know other teachers like me who come in and they quit.”
But Wolf and Schneider want to stay at their schools. They both went through an intense five-week training period during the summer that prepared them for the challenges of the classroom.
To keep focused, teachers must set their minds on achieving goals. For example, Schneider said she wants her students to be able to write a five-paragraph paper by the end of the year.
Wolf said the job is a perfect way to get involved straight out of college.
“I couldn’t imagine being in a cubicle right now trying to figure out what I was going to do for the last 16 minutes of work,” he said. “The job demands constant creativity and fast decision-making, but it’s never boring. To me, there was just no other option in terms of being able to make such an impact so quickly out of college.”
Reach Sarah Bailey at [email protected].
