Words Have Power
Two years ago, faced with my graduation from the University, I began looking for work. I care a lot about education, so I applied to Teach For America, along with the usual group of tech companies and the startup where I work today.
While I think that Teach For America’s mission is tremendously important, parts of the program do concern me. As one friend put it, a lot of the program’s teachers just want their requisite nonprofit time before moving on to Senate appointments, and it really does show. I’ve always been a bit more of a craftsman than a politician, personally, and I worry sometimes about whether students suffer as people for the sake of good-looking news stories. They talk about “dynamic teachers who had not only a command of the curriculum but also the ability to connect with children,” but one US News story they shared described an academy founded by former TFA teachers:
Running or yelling is forbidden; students walk in straight, quiet lines. Though classes average more than 30 students, they are so silent you could hear an eraser drop. If a child speaks without being called on, the teacher stops in midsentence. If a child’s attention strays, the teacher warns: “I’m missing one person’s eyes.”
This doesn’t feel like “connecting with children” to me; it feels like a show of force rather than compassion or outreach. The teacher isn’t saying Look at me, because this is important; he says Look at me, because I can humiliate you. The academy even spends the first week “KIPPnotizing” new students to behave that way. I almost expected the example student to snap to his feet, ramrod-straight, and shout “I am sorry, Mein Herr! It shall not happen again!” Discipline and academic rigor have their places, of course, and I’m an advocate of both, but too much of either can be a socially crippling thing.
We are more than our grades and test scores.
Saying this out loud was probably not the smartest thing I have ever done.
