Thursday, September 19, 2013
Teacher Preparation
After our discussion about Teach for America in class I decided to see what society says about it. Obviously there are going to be numerous opinions out there, but I had never really heard much about the program until class so I wanted to see what others out there thought about it. I googled Teach for America and I found this article, among many others, that got my attention. It is from the Washington Post entitled Teach For America’s ‘dirty little secret’ (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/08/15/teach-for-americas-dirty-little-secret/). I started to read the article and one of the first things that they talk about is teacher preparation. The five weeks of training for the TFA teachers before going in to the classroom. The controversy that came up in the article was whether teachers are really being prepared to go in to the classroom. It was interesting to me because I feel like teaching is a profession that you can't be taught or trained for. Each year is going to be different because your classroom is forever changing. There isn't a set of equations you need to know in order to be successful in the field. The only thing, from what I have been told, that is going to help you become a better teacher is just being in the classroom and living every day doing the best you can with the knowledge you have, and the ability to think quickly for when your plan doesn't work. The rest of the article was interesting too, but that one part really just stuck out to me because society looks at teaching as an easy profession and in reality it is one of the hardest and most stressful jobs you can have.
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Yeah, I find articles like these often focus on "five weeks of training," without considering the number of corps members who are required/choose to earn Master's during their commitments, and the ongoing support corps members receive from the organization. "Five weeks of training" doesn't mean 25 eight hour days in front of Powerpoints with a break for lunch. It's an intensive program that includes actually teaching summer school, receiving on-the-spot coaching, and being required to quickly implement feedback . . . in addition to classroom-style lessons on pedagogy/development/ed. psychology, etc. In that jam-packed five weeks, the foundation of educational theory and praxis is laid so that strong teachers can be built through the next two years. It's not perfect, but it's also not summer camp.
ReplyDeleteYour comment about the article treating teaching also struck a chord with me. I think you're right that it's an interesting perspective--if it's easy, can anyone do it? If so, why are people angry about TFA? If teaching is difficult, should only certain people do it? If so, who are those people? If not, how do we help people do it well? Those are exactly the questions that people have when TFA comes up. What do you think?