Teach For America is a national group that recruits recent college graduates to teach in poorer public schools. Presumably the students would be better served than they would be by regular substitute teachers in those areas.
But it is never going to be an easy process. Evangelism is just that, for a college student it would mean being a true believer, the same way an intern for a politician or Sierra Club would be.
Now, a group like this is going to be outside Big Education so we can assume there is some friction there, the same way institutions reliant on funding don't like home schooled kids or private schools, and it is going to have people who have an idealized notion about it, and become jaded about the organization, the same way someone who works at a church they love might become jaded about church.
Bryn Mawr College senior Emma Gulley, guest-posting on Gary Rubinstein's blog, uses terms like "bullied" and "force fed" about Teach For America. It may be so, but I am not sure this convinces me. Cauley was unwilling to ask professors to let her have a few minutes to talk to a class about what sounds like a Peace Corps for Education. That means either she is the wrong personality for a grass roots organization or she just didn't like it but felt guilt at not liking it and persevered anyway and began to resent it. The "I could not contribute to the deprofessionalization of teaching" realization due to "the help of some very understanding education professors "rings a bit of an alarm.
Now, teaching is one of the five professions, along with engineering, law, medicine and the military. But the way she is using it is connoting 'unqualified' and that takes more evidence than just some personal anecdotes.
"Leaving TFA was like leaving a cult" is hyperbole and even using a simple fact - TFA teachers do their two years and leave - is used as a condemnation. I wouldn't expect someone in the Peace Corps to do it as a career either, though I think if I see two years of it on a resume that is a big plus, because it means people care about the world and know how to work hard for nothing but self-satisfaction. Which is a big part of success in the corporate world.
Am I reading it wrong? What does the audience think?
How Interning for TFA Convinced me of its Injustice - http://garyrubinstein.teachforus.org/2014/02/22/guest-post-series-part-o...
