Northwestern University and Evanston's Only Daily News Source Since 1881

The Daily Northwestern

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Northwestern University and Evanston's Only Daily News Source Since 1881

The Daily Northwestern

Northwestern University and Evanston's Only Daily News Source Since 1881

The Daily Northwestern

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Teaching for Whom?

When Orin Gutlerner graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1996, he says he “felt the pull to start contributing to the world.” So he joined Teach for America. The program had been in existence just six years, and was full mostly of young people interested in education, he says. Gutlerner was assigned to a school in rural North Carolina, where he spent four years. “At the time, it was an effective way to meet my short term goals, but in the long run, I attribute my experience with Teach For America to where I am now,” says the 32-year-old.

Where Gutlerner is now is Harvard University, where he is the director of the school’s Undergraduate Teacher Education Program. He still has an affection for the program, but in recent years has noticed a change. “I get the sense that some students view the program as a stepping stone to other fields,” Gutlerner says. Later, he adds, “If I get a clear sense from a student that they’ve thought deeply about teaching and about Teach For America, then I want them to be best prepped for long-term success; I try to objectively paint a picture for them. There are other interesting and innovative programs out there.”

Gutlerner’s ambivalence isn’t uncommon in the education field. Teach For America was started in 1990 by a Princeton senior aspiring to bridge the nation’s educational gap. After starting with 500 teachers in six school districts, it has expanded to 29 regions and more than 5,000 corps members. Sponsorship by companies such as Mobil and increasing national prestige have resulted in a wider- and more competitive- pool of applicants. New York Times Columnist Thomas Friedman has called it the Peace Corps of this generation. According to campus representatives, Northwestern students are especially active in the program. This year 177 NU seniors applied for TFA, up about 20 percent from last year (They also tend to get in at a higher rate: NU has a roughly 35 percent acceptance rate, versus 21 percent nationally).

For that kind of growth, many credit the program with putting teaching back on the radar for more college grads. But while many applaud the way the program has drawn attention back to the teaching profession, some education professionals also question TFA’s methods.

“Teach For America’s idea of teaching is that it’s for smart amateurs,” says SESP social policy professor Dan Lewis. The approach, he says, is “full of hubris.”

At its inception, TFA was meant to encourage students to choose teaching over more lucrative opportunities by establishing a “prominent teacher corps,” according to their website. Today the goals are less focused specifically on creating teachers. “TFA has a two-pronged approach,” says Jackson Froliklong, a SESP junior who has been involved with Teach For America since his freshman year, and who was hired last year as its campus campaign coordinator. “In the immediate term, it puts teachers in classrooms that need them the most, and in the long term, graduates of the program understand the gravity of America’s education inequalities and do something with this knowledge and experience.”

One of the contentious issues in the debate over TFA is its preparation process for new teachers. Corps members are trained in five- to seven-week intensive summer sessions that include monitored classroom experience, workshops and teacher education lectures. After fewer than two months, they are sent into schools where they earn normal teachers’ salaries, ranging from around $25,000 a year in a rural area like the Mississippi Delta, to approximately $40,000 in New York City and the Bay Area.

NU recruiter David Omenn began his own 2-year TFA stint teaching elementary school science in Houston, where many of his students did not know planetary names or how to use a thermometer. “This is the most challenging thing many people will ever do,” Omenn says. “It involves teaching 5th graders who are on a 2nd grade reading level.”

It is that sort of situation which bothers Sheila Brady, Columbia College Chicago’s teacher certification officer. She says TFA corps members function as “temporary volunteers” in the education system instead of actual teachers. “To infer, as does the Teach for America program, that one can teach well after a few weeks of training almost demeans the profession,” Brady says. “These lightly-trained volunteers are often placed in schools where at-risk children need the most well-prepared teachers.” This idea is echoed by teaching experts on our campus. “There’s a natural disbelief and resentment that someone who’s taken a summer program is seen as equally qualified as someone who’s spent years getting an education degree,” says Meg Kreuser, SESP teacher certification director. “Simply put, Teach For America is quick and dirty.”

But program advocates say that TFA’s application process looks for students who will be able to withstand that kind of pressure. “TFA does an excellent job of pinpointing those who will stick with the corps,” Froliklong says. The application process is fairly straightforward from students’ end, but is far more extensive from TFA’s perspective. “The organization does retroactive research by identifying the most successful graduates of TFA in order to pinpoint desirable traits in applicants,” says Medill senior Libby Pier, another NU campus campaign coordinator. “Plus, these outstanding graduates of the program refer other applicants.”

Talking to teachers in the field, stories can range from inspirational to nightmarish. Ian Hillis, Weinberg ’06, may be TFA’s ideal story line. Hillis was a political science major “100 percent committed to law school,” with a “set course” for the first few years out of college. Upon speaking to friends who were program coordinators, Hillis realized that his graduate school plans could be deferred in favor of trying his hand at teaching. On September 3, he started his TFA placement teaching 3rd graders at John Hay Community Academy on Chicago’s West Side. “The program did an incredible job of preparing me for the classroom,” Hillis says. “It’s a five-week boot camp… you’re waking up at 5:30 in the morning, learning and teaching until past midnight, surrounded by a support network of 800 people going through the same thing,” he says.

“Any Teach For America teacher will tell you that the first three months are the most difficult experience of your life,” he says. But because of TFA, Hillis believes that “teaching will always be at the forefront” of his mind. “What I’m seeing now will forever change my life path,” he says.

On the flip side, there are corps members like Rebecca Zazove. The NU grad is currently wrapping up her two-year Teach For America stint in Los Angeles. “I went into the program for the social justice element, but you don’t end up addressing any of that, because the education system is so messed up … you just end up teaching every day, which is great if you want to teach, but I didn’t feel like I was making an impact,” Zazove says. “I would only recommend it to people who want to seriously pursue a career in education.” Upon finishing her “two years of misery” this June, Zazove will begin applying to graduate schools to attain a PhD in social psychology. “I need time to call my own, to be young and not responsible,” she says.

The immersive nature of Teach For America’s structure ushers criticism from educators as well about its long-term effectivity. Oftentimes, graduates need to be a little more selective about what they’re going to do next with their lives, says NU’s Lewis. “A lot of students sign up (for TFA) because they don’t know what to do with themselves,” Lewis says. “But if you don’t have that commitment to teaching, the experience will be all the more challenging and frustrating,”

Those who are truly interested in teaching should get certified while undergraduates, Lewis says. He estimates that approximately 100 students go through SESP’s undergraduate certification program each year. The school also offers alternative certification, whi
ch is better suited for individuals a few years out of graduate school, he says. NU operates a comparable alternative certification program called NU-TEACH, which, like TFA, trains students in a summer intensive before placing them in inner city Chicago schools for only one year. Participants get advising from “master teachers” both inside and outside the classroom. The program started in 1998 and includes undergrads as well as mid-career adults.

Of course, TFA also offers separate benefits other certification programs don’t, like such as loan repayment deferrals, and help paying for a masters in teaching. Then, of course, there is the resume cache. “Today’s industries require an alphabet soup of degrees, so any more degrees I can acquire will be all the more helpful in the future,” says Pier, who is slated to teach high school English in L.A. and plans to take nighttime classes in order to earn her master’s. Even applicants with genuine teaching ambitions like Pier are allured by the program’s lucrative perks. “It’s become such a selective program that anyone accepted must be an exceptional individual,” Pier says. “I’m aware that Teach For America will probably enhance my job prospects.”

Some critics would like to see TFA do more to make sure applicants don’t just treat their experience in TFA as another notch on their resume. “If I could challenge TFA on anything, it would be that they ask more of this generation of college students,” Harvard’s Gutlerner says. “The organization has a serious brand name now… they should cash in on that return and raise their expectations of their applicants,” possibly, he adds, by requiring them to stay in teaching for four years.

But in a sense, the fact that not all TFA graduates stay in the classroom as one of the program’s biggest strengths, says Froliklong, the NU coordinator. “The most exciting thing about TFA is that it results in a range people involved in all sects of life – public, private, business, medical, and political – caring ardently about educational inequalities,” he says. Froliklong acknowledges that some decry the program for having a “white messiah complex.” It’s unfortunate, he says. “Some people choose to view (TFA) as nothing more than a cliché Hollywood tale.”

Still, he says he believes in the mission, and he will be applying to join up as a teacher himself. “I’m know I’m like the bricks and mortar guy at the bottom, but I genuinely buy it, at least at this point,” Froliklong says. “After all, this is the civil rights crisis of our generation… intense rhetoric aside, it’s a huge problem and something needs to be done about it.”

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Northwestern University and Evanston's Only Daily News Source Since 1881
Teaching for Whom?