Teach for America Is As Toxic Pedagogically As It Is Politically
When I organized a panel for the Labor and Working Class History Association Conference in Washington on "Why Progressive Faculty Should Boycott Teach for America," what was foremost in my mind was the role that TFA was playing in supplying replacement labor for school districts firing veteran teachers and its training of leaders promoting school privatization, but what I came away from the panel with was a much enhanced understanding of the damage TFA pegadogy is doing in inner city schools.
This is not a subject I had much familiarity with, since i am not a teacher educator, or someone involved with training teachers or developing curricula, but the composition of the panel, which included two teacher educators,Dave Green and Joan Croce Grim, and two former TFA Corps members, Desmera Gatewood and Annie Tan, ended up focusing much of the discussion on what TFA teachers bring into the classroom.
And here, what i learned was horrifying. Basically, because TFA teachers are thrown into extremely challenging school settings with only five weeks of training, and no student teaching experience, they are given a template which includes cookie cutter formulas for handling discipline and class management issues, and an approach to teaching which ONLY emphasizes preparing students for standardized tests. TFA teachers are required to follow this template even when it isn't working, even when it alienates students, and even though it totally excludes any attempt to make instruction relevant to cultural background and traditions of the students they are working with.
The results of this can be disastrous in any school, but they