When I Was Younger, So Much Younger Than Today
I came across, recently, as I’ve been scanning in some of the ‘clutter’ I’ve had in boxes in storage, the the cover letter and the two essays I wrote for my TFA application. The deadline for applying to become a part of the second ever Teach For America cohort was in January of 1991. As this was exactly 22 years ago, this is the first time that these essays are approximately the same age as the soon-to-be Teach For America 2013 cohort.
I thought of posting these after seeing two recent comments from newly accepted corps members on my ‘Why I Did TFA And Why You Shouldn’t’ post. One was very naive and the other was more realistic. I was wondering where I would have stood on this spectrum 22 years ago. I’ll quote the comments from those two new corps members and then reprint the scans of my essays. I’m doing this, not to ridicule the new corps member who I call ‘naive’ but to show that it is pretty natural for someone in his/her position to feel this way. Even back 22 years ago, TFA recruited us and gave us the confidence that we would be able to do a good job right away.
Here is the ‘naive’ comment:
I thought of posting these after seeing two recent comments from newly accepted corps members on my ‘Why I Did TFA And Why You Shouldn’t’ post. One was very naive and the other was more realistic. I was wondering where I would have stood on this spectrum 22 years ago. I’ll quote the comments from those two new corps members and then reprint the scans of my essays. I’m doing this, not to ridicule the new corps member who I call ‘naive’ but to show that it is pretty natural for someone in his/her position to feel this way. Even back 22 years ago, TFA recruited us and gave us the confidence that we would be able to do a good job right away.
Here is the ‘naive’ comment:
I just got accepted to TFA and plan to accept my offer from them tomorrow. I debated long and hard about this choice. I believe that while TFA ers don’t have the wisdom of more experienced teachers, we bring nuanced ideas to the table–ideas that people who have been in the business of
