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.
It shouldn’t surprise anyone that Teach For America decided that I was best not left alone around developing young minds. If they hadn’t done that, my assignment would be winding down now, nearing completion, and I think it’s interesting to look back and think about that alternate self, the one who does get paid to help the underachievers.
He doesn’t get to pick his students. I would hate to find myself forced to deal with a year of this. On the other hand, he gets to devote more time to a noble cause, and he gets to give the Opening Talk.
The Opening Talk was supposed to be my first-day speech, a highlight of my general expectations and the material I planned to cover in the class. It was supposed to run bell-to-bell, or very close to it, an indulgence to my sense of the cinematic. I never finished it, but I do have the ending, and I’m still very proud of it.
I can hear you asking, “Why do I need to learn this? What does it matter? They’re only words.”
I will tell you.
Words have power. People will fight and die for words, in ways they wouldn’t dream for any lesser thing. How much money does it take to pay a man to jump on a grenade? There isn’t enough the world, but he’ll do it for his country, because words will stir him, to believe in Mom and apple pie, to remember Pearl Harbor or the Alamo. The greatest battles that the world has ever seen have been fought over the supremacy of words, when the immortal poetry of We the People of the United States of America and the stoic grandeur of God, Queen, and Country were set against the grim and unyeilding fury of Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Führer.
Words will set the world on fire. Words will shape the minds of men.
Words are the most important tools that you will ever have.
Think about that.
Dismissed.
Sometimes I wonder if it would work the way I planned. Maybe I could have made a difference; maybe I’m better off out here.
I think it’s terribly sad how people don’t take education seriously. Teach For America isn’t just a program to spend you time getting superficial credit for. You have the chance to CHANGE someone’s life. I just don’t understand how people completely ignore that. The program isn’t for -you-, it for the people you’re supposed to be helping.
Peoples’ egos get in the way too much.
of course, from what you’ve said in this essay, then maybe Teach For America isn’t the place to be if you want to make a difference.
Dude. >_<
I don’t think you should immediately judge such a classroom until you’ve seen it in action. Like most things in life, saying that everything like that is a bad thing is too general of a comment to be realistic.
I’m also not sure where you got this idea: “The teacher isn’t saying Look at me, because this is important; he says Look at me, because I can humiliate you.” I scanned the article, and didn’t notice anything about humiliation. If you have ever seen a great teacher utilize the, “stops in midsentence; missing one person’s eyes,” approach, you would see that this body language is usually an effective and gentle correction so that learning can continue in a group lesson.
My preciouses spent two years each in a classroom much like that one (although some quiet talking is allowed), and they felt loved, challenged, and guided. And happy! In fact, Precious #1 was in the polar opposite of that classroom for six months, floundering from lack of direction, basic behavioral standards, and structure. Within one week in “Mein Herr’s” classroom, she was thriving, learning more in that one week than in the past six months.
If you’d like real life examples, I can invite you to two classrooms: “Mein Herr’s”, and one very much “not”. You’ll see what I mean. One where the children learn beyond the grade standards, and one where they sort of frustratedly coast through if they’re lucky, and try to catch up the next year.
Many, many people can become teachers. Not all of them can become effective and caring teachers.
Respectfully,
~T
I can appreciate the value of a highly-structured classroom, and to be perfectly honest some of my favorite teachers have run very tight ships. One of them, a former Marine, began every lecture with “Sit down, shut up, pay attention, and Jason take your hat off.” He lectured bell-to-bell and could chew you out without breaking stride. Frequently he could even work it into the lecture.
I really admire him; I freely admit that the Opening Talk is inspired loosely by his class.
The difference, I think, and really the thing that bothers me about this KIPP school, is that he didn’t need to spend two weeks
reeducating“KIPPnotizing” us to make us behave. I expect that your daughter’s teacher didn’t have to, either. The only schlocky motivational poster in his room was the one he used as a drawer liner. He commanded respect, naturally, and earned it by sheer force of competence and personality; even Jason (whose name usually made teachers laugh nervously even five or six years later) sat down, shut up, paid attention, and took his hat off.Not everyone teaches well in that style, though; some of my other favorite teachers ran very egalitarian, almost social classrooms, and the independent, individual critical thinking I learned from them is just as valuable, in the long term, as the extra subject material I learned from the authoritarians. Unfortunately, the benefits from that don’t show up for years, and certainly not on standardized tests, which carry a lot of weight in news stories and the TFA/KIPP company cultures. From interviews and everything else I’ve seen, those programs feel like… academic theater, really, more than anything. They look great in news stories, and I admit they do get the results that people are testing for.
I pick up this weird fetishy vibe for Theory-X-style discipline, for stamping uniform, standardized, politico-friendly teachers out of the TFA/KIPP mold, rather than helping people find the grooves that work best for them and bring out the long-term best in their students. A solid work ethic is a tremendously valuable thing, but at the same time, if you think you can make up for critical thinking skills by working harder, there’s no end to the things you can’t do.
That’s one man’s opinion, at least.