Teach for America or Teach for Oneself?

An article appeared in the The New York Times recently discussing the clearly competitive Teach for America program, and as a professional educator, I found myself taking issue with the program and focus as presented by the Times.

The article discussed a few people who had graduated from elite colleges and university who have pursued participation in Teach for America -- I really cannot call them educators just yet. There were several problems expressed by the article, as near as I could tell.

First of all, the slant of the article seemed to indicate that these elite grads were either doing something self-sacrificing, heroic or possible beneath what they might be doing as lawyers or business professionals by "trying out" the teaching profession. Why is it that teaching -- especially public school teaching -- seems out of the realm of elite college grads? For one thing, this isn't even true. Some of my colleagues -- as well as myself, I will say here -- attended elite colleges and universities and became teachers not because we couldn't get better jobs or because of the economy. We became teachers because there was something about the profession that spoke to us.  Furthermore, being a graduate of one of those colleges  mentioned in the article -- yes even Harvard or Duke -- is NO guarantee that you will be a better teacher than someone who went to a public or state college. I have absolutely seen the truth of that, I will also say.

It is hard to tell with any new teacher how long they will last in the profession; true enough. Part of the job requires a willingness to learn and participate, however, in order to be successful. Being "recruited" doesn't mean you are suited. My advice would be to listen and learn, not assume your past laurels will propel you into instant success and appreciation in a profession where even on the best of days you need your heart, humility, sense of humor, and mind intact, perhaps in that order. Trust me, no one really cares where you went to school or what your SAT scores and GPA were. It does not automatically make you a better teacher or some sort of gift to the profession. Wait, did I say that already?

As for staying up until midnight working on lesson plans, I can also say that MANY first year teachers do that. It's because you don't know what you're doing yet, to some degree. It doesn't make you a hero - it's what happens until you figure things out including how to balance teaching with the rest of your life.  As for Ms. Nyugen's "Fun Math game" that she "created", I want to say Oh really? I know that Math game, as does nearly every other teacher I know who's taught elementary school Math. You can also do it to create a history timeline, or as an icebreaker at the beginning of the year where you use birthdays to order the line. Maybe Ms. Nyugen (someone really needs to tell her to lose the heels if she's teaching sixth grade) was experiencing one of Eleanor Duckworth's "Having of Wonderful Ideas". She would know about that if she went to Harvard instead of Stanford maybe. Or maybe not if she's just marking time until a job opens up 'in her field".