In the last few weeks, I’ve encountered a number of people who ask about Teach for America as an organization. Although my blogs might reflect negativity toward teaching and TFA, this is not the sentiment I intended. Rather, in my eyes, TFA serves its communities in a way that far outweighs its mission to allow all children access to high-quality education (a mission most admirable).
TFA recruits some of the most accomplished college graduates in the country, people who have shown responsibility and resolve in their lives. These energetic people are placed around the country in its most underserved communities. In this respect, TFA brings diverse backgrounds to areas in which homogeneity is the norm. At my school, the biggest disservice to our students is the lack of resources for out-of-state opportunities post-high school.
NOTE: I could go on for hours about the incompetency at my school, the lack of communication between administrators and teachers, the inability to plan ahead, and the implicit expectation for teachers to bite off more responsibility than is listed in their contract, but this issue is one that I find most detrimental to Clarendon’s most motivated kids.
I began my College Club to address this void. The college counselor has endless supplies for in-state schools. Although an Arkansas college is better than no college, I think that our most driven students, those who could represent a depressingly underrepresented portion of the country in an Ivy League or other top-rated university, are not given the chance. I agree that we must know how to improve classes and curricula for all students, regardless of skill or reading level. However, I don’t want to see Clarendon’s best and brightest settle for less than their potential.
Kristina is one of those students who needs this attention. She has a 4.0 GPA, a difficult family life, and she works in her spare time to earn extra spending cash. She’s a star in my Spanish class; after a month of class, she was asking her Spanish-speaking customers which flavor of ice cream they wanted by means of circumlocution. And as one of the 8 members of the Clarendon College Club, she has opened up and expressed her passions for a number of topics.
On her brag sheet, Kristina wrote that she’s most proud of her “artwork.” Plenty of students have boasted about their “art,” and without rejecting their claims, I’ve passively congratulated them, then quickly forgotten about it. Kristina revealed that she has a portfolio from her AP Studio Art class, and I started to notice her sketches – Tim Burton-esque owls and mannequins – in the margins of her Spanish worksheets. I told her to bring her art to our following Club meeting.
Working with Photoshop, Kristina has produced some of the most interesting photography I’ve seen from a student. I researched summer programs for fine arts in the surrounding states: Georgia, Mississippi, Texas, Tennessee, and Louisiana. She didn’t know these types of programs existed.
Opening up my College Club’s eyes to the thousands of colleges and universities in this country that could best focus their studies has been a rewarding experience. And this is why TFA is a valuable organization. These students would not be exposed to different opportunities available to them. Although tuition and family pressures are enough to turn these students away from the programs and colleges that could help them the most to achieve their full potential, TFA corps members bring diversity to regions that need to see it the most.
A friend asked me yesterday, “Even if you show them these opportunities, aren’t there systemic issues, social ills and economic concerns, that must be addressed before anything substantial can happen?” And the answer, if I didn’t give it to her then, is a resounding yes.
But in my classroom, social ills can’t bother me. Instead, I must focus on what I can influence. And for the next two months, my focus will be on Kristina and her fellow Club members.
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