Welcome TFA 2016 Corps Members
Dear TFA 2016 Corps Members,
Thank you for choosing to enter the teaching profession. Please stay longer than two years. Give the classroom at least five. If you’re placed in a “no excuses” school, just know that that is not the way things ought to be for children and it “doesn’t feel right” because it is not right. It is inhumane. Ask yourself what might be the unconscious impulses driving these policies and why many of the schools you went to did not treat you in this way. Your deductive reasoning will lead you to racism, and maybe a form of xenophobia. Children should be allowed to converse during breakfast and lunch and middle school kids especially should be allowed to transition from one class to another on their own while having casual conversation.
Further, your job is not to get higher test scores. Your job is to develop human beings who love life, learning, and the world. Test scores do not lead to college success. This is easily verifiable. A love of learning is sustainable, and happens through emotional intelligence and passion. Make these two things a pillar in your classroom.
Empower your students to lead, create, design, and build, not to simply work for a master. Empower parents with their right to refuse the state exams and to have a larger voice in their child’s education. Doing this empowers entire Welcome TFA 2016 Corps Members | Jamaal A. Bowman: