The Dangers of Teach For America Indoctrination
Now, I have a lot of gripes with Teach For America. (You don't say, Ms. Katie!) I think their 5 week training stinks, and is bad for kids. I think their ties to the neoliberal education reform movement are dangerous and impossible to decouple from all that TFA is. I think their funding, their lobbying efforts, their twisted PR "research" are all crap. I want to strangle every expansion effort they push through even as veteran educators are laid off. They are anti-union. Ridiculously so.
Yet, one effect of TFA that does not get enough coverage, although it's often referenced tangentially, is the power of TFA indoctrination. (But oh! was it in effect at the #TFA25 celebration held over the weekend! Another post, perhaps...)
No one wants to admit that they have been indoctrinated. And we all have to some extent. For the most part, we do not even know that we don't know much of what has been spoon fed to us through the media, cultural norms, or existing power structures. None of us is immune, including myself.
However, what TFA does is something unique. And it's measurable. Think of any encounter you've had with an edreform "true believer". How many times have you thought to yourself, "must have been TFA", then after doing a quick Google search been right! This has happened to me too many times. Way too many times.
Let's take an example. A few weeks back, there was a truly shocking commentary in our Chicago education magazine Catalyst Chicago that was titled How Bailey Reimer's Ms. Katie's Ramblings: The Dangers of Teach For America Indoctrination: