Disillusionment over Teach for America
Tmao of Teaching in the 408 — a Teach for America (TFA) alum — blogged a sharp, sad commentary about TFA today.
He points out unhappily that TFA ("Teach for Awhile") treats it as a given that these bright-eyed youth will spend a couple of years in the classroom helping disadvantaged urban kids, and then go on to their real lives, probably something important and lucrative.
(Speaking of bright eyes, the youthful Tmao has the wisdom of a much older person — but apparently not the vision, and I refer here to the literal kind of vision the optometrist deals with. We middle-aged geezers struggle to read the white-on-black reverse lettering on his blog.)
— Caroline
He points out unhappily that TFA ("Teach for Awhile") treats it as a given that these bright-eyed youth will spend a couple of years in the classroom helping disadvantaged urban kids, and then go on to their real lives, probably something important and lucrative.
... the myth [is] that the best way to bring about educational reform is to 1) align yourself with media-friendly small/charter school movements and undermine the school communities you promote yourself as serving and 2) steer talented individuals with some teaching experience out of the classroom and into other fields so they can tangentially affect the lives of today's poor urban and rural youth.It's an insider perspective we don't see often.
(Speaking of bright eyes, the youthful Tmao has the wisdom of a much older person — but apparently not the vision, and I refer here to the literal kind of vision the optometrist deals with. We middle-aged geezers struggle to read the white-on-black reverse lettering on his blog.)
— Caroline
4 Comments:
Really? Cuz the black on white kills my eyes. I do the blue-screen white-type thing on my word processing, too.
Thanks for the link; sorry about the esthetics.
I've never understood the aversion to light type on dark background color schemes. I far prefer it that way. But I get that feedback about my blog too, so I keep thinking about going mainstream. Sigh...
KC- After checking out the panoramic view from your blog, I have a sneaking suspicion we are neighbors. I live on the bottom of B. Heights, the part that slopes down into the dynamicism and decay of the Mission...
Maybe there's something about the water in Bernal that makes it easier to read reverse type. It's hard for me. (OK, I'm nearly twice tmao's age, but pretty much the same generation as KC, who must just have youthful eyes.)
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