Old thread from years ago was dead.

But I saw some people knew some people who were in this. Well for those people, and for anybody else who has done it or was accepted, just how selective are they? How impressive are these people's resumes? Were they all student body presidents and had a buttload of community service?

Any other info or insight would be appreciated as well. How was the experience? Anybody ever teach in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas? And anybody ever lived around there or McAllen?

6/12/2007 10:15:40 AM

How I Joined Teach for America—and Got Sued for $20 Million

http://www.city-journal.org/html/13_1_how_i_joined.html

6/12/2007 1:23:53 PM

^wow. I wish I could say I was surprised.

6/12/2007 2:49:24 PM

this is pretty much exactly why I will never teach in public school

6/12/2007 3:34:48 PM

The article nicely sums up so many things that are wrong with this country.

6/12/2007 3:44:20 PM

In McAllen, Texas you'd definitely have a different ethnic background than in D.C. There's gotta be a website/blog that has a bunch of TFA members and experiences. Try Yahoo Answers as well.

6/12/2007 3:55:52 PM

teach for america candidates are definitely qualified, but their resumes are not overloaded with volunteer work or things like that. they usually have experience in leadership positions, and things like that. but, unless you really love teaching and are willing to live in the ghetto or out in BFE, it's not something i would want to do.

i mean, i love teaching but raleigh is ghetto enough for me. a lot of people i know don't last the whole program

6/12/2007 4:02:48 PM

Quote :

"The article nicely sums up so many things that are wrong with this country."

6/12/2007 4:08:18 PM

yea that article certainly paints a depressing but most likely true picture of the public school system that TFA deals with. luckily, though, Hispanic culture is a lot different than black culture. So I imagine the McAllen experience will be a lot different than that in D.C.

And yeah, I've never done a lot of extra curriculars, student government, leader of clubs, stuff like that. So I'm thinking that could hurt. My academics are good though, in a few honor societies, studied abroad, mission trips, and worked with kids abroad some. So I'm hoping that's good enough. We'll see.

And I'd be in McAllen (if I got my first choice) to further develop my Spanish, help out with Hispanic community and stuff. Plus being able to walk to Mexico for lunch would be sweet.

6/12/2007 4:14:23 PM

Wow that article is fucked up.
How in the world do you consider breaking up fighting students (elementary students, mind you) to be "corporal punishment?"

Damn. Now I'm pissed off for the rest of the day.

6/12/2007 4:29:41 PM

If 'Teach for America' says that teachers are badly needed then why do they only accept ~10% of their applicants.

6/12/2007 4:32:30 PM

Because DC ain't no joke.

6/12/2007 4:42:25 PM

^^they don't want everyone dropping out after a week

6/12/2007 4:44:16 PM

Once again, the government school system screws up.

This is why I support a voucher system - to allow parents to take their kids out of these hellholes and put them in a different school.

6/12/2007 4:48:56 PM

A year ago I would have argued against that.

But then I became a teacher at a failing school.



When a school starts the downward spiral, the best thing you can do is abandon ship.

6/12/2007 5:58:40 PM

Quote :

"Being a white teacher in a mostly black school unquestionably hindered my ability to teach. Certain students hurled racial slurs with impunity; several of their parents intimated to my colleagues that they didn’t think a white teacher had any business teaching their children—and a number of my colleagues agreed. One parent who was also a teacher’s aide threatened to “kick my white ass” in front of my class and received no punishment from the principal, beyond being told to stay out of my classroom. The failure of the principal, parents, and teachers to react more decisively to racist disrespect emboldened students to behave worse. Such poisonous bigotry directed at a black teacher at a mostly white school would of course have created a federal case."

Wow, just wow.

The above, coupled with posts in the Soap Box by black posters saying at HS graduation when black students received awards, they were booed by all the black students in the audience, just goes to show that black people will not rise unless they help themselves. You can talk about slavery and oppression all you want, but the double standards, blatant racism, and the anti-intellectualism currently present in many black communities is harming blacks today a lot more than the remnant effect of slavery and oppression.

But what would I know, I am neither black, nor American.

6/12/2007 6:14:01 PM

My friend graduated a few years ago and works at an almost all black high school. She says she and some colleagues get called a "white bitch" all the time. If a white student was calling a black teacher a nigger, how fast do you think a lawsuit would be filed?

6/12/2007 6:16:57 PM

Faster that it took you type the words after "nigger".

6/12/2007 6:32:32 PM

A teacher suing a student?

That makes no sense.

6/12/2007 6:39:31 PM

hell if she called anyone a nigger their would be hell to pay

if i knew that the government would not help people, i would be all for letting them fail and quit school whenever they wanted; white, black, red, yellow, etc

but there are social programs that people have to fall back on as well as being too young to have the foresight to realize what they are throwing away

you cant help people that dont want to be helped

6/12/2007 6:42:56 PM

Quote :

"My friend graduated a few years ago and works at an almost all black high school. She says she and some colleagues get called a "white bitch" all the time. If a white student was calling a black teacher a nigger, how fast do you think a lawsuit would be filed?"

What the crap?

6/12/2007 7:34:35 PM

I read that article and would make a racist comment but will refrain this time.

Personally I do not buy the "Us African Americans do not have the same opportunities as white people."
Many black people are able to pull themselves out of the ghetto and get good jobs. Mexicans and Chinese immigrants come here from impoverished lives and managed to find there way in american society. Most whites who immigrated here during the 1800's and early 1900's got off the boat with nothing but the lent in there pocket and some personal belongings. Slavery has been dead for 140 years. There is no reason that any black person can not succeed like any other racial group except for the fact they just do not care and there parents do not provide a positive role model.

I have a friend who teaches public high school and one of his classes is a low level english class made up of high proportion black kids. He says the general attitude is that unless you goal is to be a rapper, NBA Star, or drug dealer then you are trying to act white. The black kids who ask questions and do good in class apparently good looked down on by the others. I guess getting an education, good job, and a productive member of society is acting white

Do not get me wrong i am sure there is white trash , ghetto mexicans and other people with the apathetic attitude but still..



[Edited on June 12, 2007 at 7:39 PM. Reason : l]

6/12/2007 7:38:08 PM

There are plenty of black people who don't want to do the anti-intellectual thing. While there weren't many (3-4 out of 20-25 people in the class?), there were several in all of my honors/AP courses in high school (granted, they were always the same ones...) and their scores were consistently on par with everyone else's.
A lot of it a child's surrounding and upbringing--no matter what your race or ethnicity is.

[Edited on June 12, 2007 at 7:48 PM. Reason : ]

6/12/2007 7:47:45 PM

saw the same thing when i tutored at sat. school for a local public middle school. once i isolated a few kids, and worked with them for a few hours, they showed major improvement and desire to learn more. but as soon as they got back in the classroom and i asked them a question in front of their peers, it was back to playing dumb. what makes it worse, is that even if you have a great session with them all day, as soon as they go home they are again surrounded by an atmosphere that teaches them to hate institutions/teachers/etc. and they regress even further.

6/12/2007 9:23:25 PM

My wife did her TFA work in Vance County, NC. Everywhere you go, you'll have some issues: these districts don't need teachers because they're at the top of the heap. She didn't have the same discipline problems as the dude in the above link, in fact, she actually had parents telling her to "whup" their kids if they got out of line (she didn't, and they were only half serious, except for one lady who asked if there was something she could sign), and usually, "I'm going to tell your 'momma'" was enough to get the kids to shut up. BUT - most of these kids were ignorant as hell, and that was something their parents weren't in any hurry to change. She ended up having to basically reteach everything they were supposed to have learned from previous years.

6/12/2007 11:04:11 PM

yea im not too worried about discipline problems. i'm no mexican, but from what i've seen of the hispanic community, looks like they've got a pretty good work ethic and aren't looking for handouts ya know.

[Edited on June 12, 2007 at 11:28 PM. Reason : 90-95 percent of the school population in the Rio Grande Valley is Hispanic btw]

6/12/2007 11:27:59 PM

go to graduate school

6/12/2007 11:38:13 PM

Quote :

"i'm no mexican, but from what i've seen of the hispanic community, looks like they've got a pretty good work ethic and aren't looking for handouts ya know. "

agreed

6/12/2007 11:50:15 PM

sounds like that cracker got what was coming to him

6/13/2007 12:05:10 AM

?topic=370969

might as well keep this one even though a lot of the responses were crap

6/13/2007 2:38:23 AM

^yea that one helped some. i guess i wanted to know more from the people that said they knew people that did TFA in that thread, and for other newcomers to the boards, to elaborate a bit on how impressive their resumes were. That was my biggest concern. but of course any discussion on TFA is welcome here, as well.

6/13/2007 9:49:03 AM

All the folks I know who've done TFA (and I know a lot of 'em) had excellent resumes...more importantly, though, I think they had well-rounded excellent resumes. Campus involvement is valuable--in part because it reveals a level of socialization, but also because it shows a level of comfort with bureaucracy that's necessary for work in the public school system.

That said, I think there's an increasing focus within TFA (thanks, in part, I think, to increasing pressure from Congress) to recruit people who are going to stay in the education field.

All my friends enjoyed their experience...I think the bureaucracy was challenging, so many of them finished their TFA years and took a break from teaching (for graduate school or non-profit work) before heading back into the classroom.

6/13/2007 2:30:02 PM

^thanks. exactly what I'm looking for. guess I better figure out a back-up plan.

6/13/2007 4:13:55 PM

I have a couple of friends doing this now in inner-city Charlotte schools. one loves it, and is really sad that school just ended and she doesn't have any more classes to teach until next year. I think the other girl hates her job and can't wait to get done with it.

both of them are planning on going to grad school after the 2 years are up.

^^ and yeah, both these girls say they feel alot of pressure to stay in education, and that TFA is pushing them to go into education admin roles.

[Edited on June 13, 2007 at 5:49 PM. Reason : asdf]

6/13/2007 5:48:35 PM

we had TFA teachers at my high school. they were some of my favorite teachers.

6/13/2007 8:00:07 PM

This is so FUCKED up:

Quote :

"When I asked other teachers to come help me stop a fight, they shook their heads and reminded me that D.C. Public Schools banned teachers from laying hands on students for any reason, even to protect other children. When a fight brewed, I was faced with a Catch-22. I could call the office and wait ten minutes for the security guard to arrive, by which point blood could have been shed and students injured. Or I could intervene physically, in violation of school policy."

And this too:

Quote :

"I’ve learned that an epidemic of violence is raging in elementary schools nationwide, not just in D.C. A recent Philadelphia Inquirer article details a familiar pattern—kindergartners punching pregnant teachers, third-graders hitting their instructors with rulers. Pennsylvania and New Jersey have reported nearly 30 percent increases in elementary school violence since 1999, and many school districts have established special disciplinary K–6 schools. In New York City, according to the New York Post, some 60 teachers recently demonstrated against out-of-control pupil mayhem, chanting, “Hey, hey, ho, ho; violent students must go.” Kids who stab each other, use teachers as shields in fights, bang on doors to disrupt classes, and threaten to “kick out that baby” from a pregnant teacher have created a “climate of terror,” the Post reports."

I hope one day people will have to get licenses to have children, after doing a battery of tests on parenting, intelligence, common sense, etc.

6/14/2007 3:16:03 AM

The problem is that people don't smack their children when they deserve it but smack them when they don't deserve it.

6/14/2007 3:38:28 AM

Quote :

""The article nicely sums up so many things that are wrong with this country.""

a sad truth.

my mom has been an elementary school teacher for ~25 years now. she has spent most of it at the same elem. school i went to. it's a good school, more of a rural, mostly white school (this means nothing other than the contrast with the one in the article). my mom has received a teacher of the year award, etc, and is considered to be a very good teacher, and she will tell you that things consistently seem to get worse each year. over the years i've noticed less and less discipline in schools, and more and more of what is in the article

[Edited on June 14, 2007 at 4:30 AM. Reason : ]

6/14/2007 4:26:31 AM

Quote :

"The article nicely sums up so many things that are wrong with this country."

Quote :

"Once again, the government school system screws up. This is why I support a voucher system - to allow parents to take their kids out of these hellholes and put them in a different school."

6/14/2007 7:19:02 AM

Quote :

" I hope one day people will have to get licenses to have children, after doing a battery of tests on parenting, intelligence, common sense, etc. "

sadly this is what our country needs. This way all the stupid worthless people will not be able to breed a future generation of worthless lowlifes as well

btw why can they not just suspend the really bad children and send them to some kind of school for bad children like military school

[Edited on June 14, 2007 at 8:12 AM. Reason : l]

6/14/2007 8:11:35 AM

bump bump bump it up.

1/8/2010 6:03:21 PM

i asked for this thread to be bumped as i am applying for the 2010 corps

i know people have tons of negative things to say about what they have heard, etc

i was wondering if anyone had ACTUALLY done teach for america and had a REAL experience to share?

1/8/2010 6:42:04 PM

i didn't do TFA, but I have several colleagues at the school i'm working at who are in it. They are all good teachers.

and i just read that goalielax article... there are very real problems at schools like that... of course the author of the article probably should have done some things differently.

1/8/2010 6:44:20 PM

so you are working at a school that has TFA teachers? can you elaborate on your working conditions at all?

1/8/2010 6:45:48 PM

Haven't done TFA, but one of my buddies who's a TFA teacher in Chicago gave me the scoop a few months ago. I actually conducted a presentation for his class, so I got to see some of his working conditions, too.

(1) It appeared that they'd placed a good number of students with behavioral disorders in his class. Walking the halls, I saw that other teachers' classes were quiet and orderly, but when I met up with my friend near the end of one of his classes, his students were talking loudly through his lecture, and he actually had to break up a fight at the end. And he works at a _charter_ school.

My friend's no slouch, either--he won a pretty coveted teaching award in grad school.

(2) Politics-wise, at his school at least, where the principal held teachers accountable for their performance in the classroom (like, she was pressuring bad teachers to leave), non-TFA teachers generally resented TFA teachers because they were, for the most part, more driven and raised the bar for everyone else. On the bright side, the principal never hassled him.

(3) His first year, my friend taught five different courses for which there hadn't been any curricula developed. He did his best to keep up with all the planning, teaching, and grading, but inevitably he fell behind, which he said got pretty rough.

(4) There was also the expectation for him to help out quite a bit over the summer--supervising events, driving on field trips (getting paid, of course). He says it's best, though, if you can use the bulk of your summer break to recharge.

As for bright spots, he's been given leeway to try out new things in his lesson plans. He had students complete blogging assignments for a final project and he brings in guest speakers every now and then for his study skills course.

The way he explains it, the summer training prior to starting his position has been the toughest part of the whole experience, hands down. Generally, he seemed really busy, (like coming home from work and grading/planning for a few hours every night) but not really overwhelmed.

[Edited on January 8, 2010 at 7:48 PM. Reason : .]

1/8/2010 7:47:27 PM

well since i created this thread, i figured i'd stop by.

i ended up doing TFA. i'm in my second year now. There's some I don't agree with, but for the most part, I think it's a great organization. i have tons to say about it and about teaching in general.

Originally I was assigned to teach ESL, then it changed to just 8th grade English Language Arts. And then two weeks before the school year started they switched me to Spanish. I love what I teach, but to be honest, because a foreign language is only required for 4-year-university-bound students, my students aren't the typical students TFAers work with. The school I work at is definitely the kind of schools TFA targets, but for the most part, my students aren't.

Any specific questions? Ask here or pm me.

1/8/2010 8:57:45 PM

What sort of training did you get prior to being placed in a classroom? Did it help you?

1/8/2010 9:47:45 PM

Quote :

"He says it's best, though, if you can use the bulk of your summer break to recharge."

Look I don't want to be critical of teachers or anything, but is there any other profession that people take a three month break to recharge in the middle of the year? You've got to be kidding me.

1/8/2010 10:47:20 PM

^are there any other professions where you work 70+ hours a week and only get paid 30k for it?

i realize most teachers don't work 70+ hours a week, but if you do your job well, that's about what you should work. and that's about what i was averaging last year. (that's why i'm all about raising the standards for teach quality and boosting teachers' salary)

1/8/2010 10:50:46 PM

Quote :

" Look I don't want to be critical of teachers or anything, but is there any other profession that people take a three month break to recharge in the middle of the year? You've got to be kidding me. "

Is there ever a post of yours where you don't come across as a stuck-up faggot? Probably not.

[Edited on January 9, 2010 at 5:57 AM. Reason : 555]

1/9/2010 5:57:06 AM