Teach for America and Cultural Tourism

[bae2017]

What do people think about Teach For America? I've heard people criticizing Teach for America as a kind of cultural tourism (hit it and quit it, put crudely), but the program seems solid to me.

Also, if I take the MCAT at the end of my junior year summer and do TFA for two years, will my MCAT score still be valid by the time I'm applying/enrolling in med school?

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[LizzyM]

I've never heard that about TFA or Peace Corps, which requires roughly the same time commitment and would be more susceptible to the"tourism" criticism. Two years is a long time to be a "tourist"; this isn't a 7 day mission trip.

It is hard work. It will put you outside of your comfort zone whether it is in your geographic location or the material you are asked to teach.

As for the MCAT, you need to check with the schools you'd be likely to apply to. You can check their websites or you can buy access from AAMC to the MSAR. If you are planning to apply to medical school the MSAR is money well spent. If you are low income and qualify for free MCAT and free applications, you can also get free access to the MSAR.

 

[drtony21]

To summarize these criticisms, most college students who are in TFA have no coursework in how to teach other than what TFA provides the summer before their placement, let alone a knowledge of how to teach a classroom full of at-risk kids. They also typically have very little experience with teaching - maybe some tutoring, but not much experience developing lesson plans and other higher-level tasks and activities. However, some school systems are replacing experienced, talented educators with TFA volunteers because it's cheaper. The question is whether this is at the expense of the kids in the classroom. Opponents of TFA would argue that these kids already face plenty of challenges and would benefit more from being taught by the best educators available, rather than some college kid who has no idea what he's doing. Sure, the TFA volunteer gets a great experience and resume booster, but at what cost to the students?

I happen to think these criticisms are valid (not saying you do or don't @cj_cregg) coming from a program similar to TFA with a lot of knowledge on what TFA is all about. All the same though, it is an incredibly difficult and impressive thing to commit to for 2 years, so much so that quite a few teachers don't make it the full two years.

OP I know a lot of schools will defer your matriculation if you say you are doing TFA. This information is also Google-able.

 

[Doudline]

As LizzyM has said, it's hard work and a significant commitment - in that sense it's not "tourism".

If you want to participate in a project that will genuinely help communities in America or elsewhere, however, join a real nonprofit org; don't get a teacher fired in exchange for your cheap, unskilled labor because it looks good on your résumé.

 

[Dr Stephen T Colbert DFA]

I have two groups of friends who've done TFA - friends who really want to be teachers and friends who wanted a resume booster/something to do right out of college. The first group had a decent experience. The second group was miserable. Think long and hard about what your motivations are for joining TFA.

 

[ConsultantMD]

I have two groups of friends who've done TFA - friends who really want to be teachers and friends who wanted a resume booster/something to do right out of college. The first group had a decent experience. The second group was miserable. Think long and hard about what your motivations are for joining TFA.

Totally agree with this statement. Friends who used TFA as a stepping stone (and saw it as such prior to accepting the position) really did not like it and had no desire to pursue a career in teaching. They went to business, law, or med school. The other cohort was genuinely passionate about teaching and are still teaching years later.

I think TFA likes to capitalize it's competitive selection process and also emphasizes this stepping stone aspect, which I don't really like. I get what you're saying about cultural tourism but that isn't really the right term I don't think. It's really more like others have said: putting in a ton of work for something that you are probably not well equipped to do. It's not easy being thrown into the fire and two years is a really long time to endure teaching, especially in communities strapped with resources.

 

[AllopathicApplicant]

I know many people who went to TFA just for two years and then opted for bschool, medschool, or law school.

Some liked it, some didn't. I'm a trained teacher and I would never, ever do TFA. I don't think the perception that "people who want a career in teaching love TFA" is correct all. In fact, of my graduating teacher's college class of ~100 students, none of us even remotely considered TFA. I'm sure most of us would prefer unemployment vs. TFA.

So, TFA is a big commitment, and it's not easy for anyone. I think it'd be an even harder pill to swallow for someone who wants to pursue teaching as a career than it'd be for a premed.

 

[drtony21]

I have two groups of friends who've done TFA - friends who really want to be teachers and friends who wanted a resume booster/something to do right out of college. The first group had a decent experience. The second group was miserable. Think long and hard about what your motivations are for joining TFA.

I think if you have a passion for serving students from underprivileged backgrounds, you can make it through tfa without a strong desire to teach. If you like working with difficult kids, have a passion for service, and are just slightly interested in teaching, a hardworking med school applicant should be able to make it. It's incredibly difficult though.

 

[Goro]

Never once in all my time on the Adcom has any applicant with TFA experience been criticized for that. We highly value applicants with this experience, and teachers in general.

Medical mission? Those we look down upon.

What do people think about Teach For America? I've heard people criticizing Teach for America as a kind of cultural tourism (hit it and quit it, put crudely), but the program seems solid to me.

Also, if I take the MCAT at the end of my junior year summer and do TFA for two years, will my MCAT score still be valid by the time I'm applying/enrolling in med school?

 

[deleted388502]

What do people think about Teach For America? I've heard people criticizing Teach for America as a kind of cultural tourism (hit it and quit it, put crudely), but the program seems solid to me.

Also, if I take the MCAT at the end of my junior year summer and do TFA for two years, will my MCAT score still be valid by the time I'm applying/enrolling in med school?

I have two groups of friends who've done TFA - friends who really want to be teachers and friends who wanted a resume booster/something to do right out of college. The first group had a decent experience. The second group was miserable. Think long and hard about what your motivations are for joining TFA.

TFA is NOT a joke. I'm an incoming corps member for 2015 and the amount of work I have had to do even prior to starting institute is insane. It was a huge internal battle for me about whether I want to do TFA or medical school, but ultimately you have to have a REASON you want to do TFA. If you just want a gap year job to pad your resume, go apply to be a scribe or an EMT. It'll look better on your medical school resume.

TFA is grueling. 80+ hour work weeks and you literally have the lives of America's forgotten children in your hands. There's a lot of expectations on you and there's nothing resume boosting about it by the time you're done if you didn't do it for the right reasons, which was to join the movement in helping to end educational inequality.

I'm sure you've heard all this before, but to answer your original question, I think most of the critics of TFA state that it's more the teacher turnover rate that's the problem rather than "cultural tourism." This is no medical mission trip that is helping impoverished children in a hands-off manner for a week. You are literally the rock in these children's lives for the duration of time you have for them. I think people forget that TFA's mission was to put people in the classroom who go on to other fields and understand the educational inequality gap, so when they can actually do something about it in fields like politics, law, medicine - they actually know firsthand what poverty is like, and can work to make real change.

I took my MCAT the fall of my senior year and I'm planning to apply (as of now) end of my first year. Your score will be valid at most schools.

 

[bae2017]

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics...lle-rhees-education-brand-failed-in-dc/63014/

This is the article that refers to TFA as cultural tourism. Not saying I agree or disagree with the allegations but I just wanted to provide some context for where I've heard this.

 

[LizzyM]

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics...lle-rhees-education-brand-failed-in-dc/63014/

This is the article that refers to TFA as cultural tourism. Not saying I agree or disagree with the allegations but I just wanted to provide some context for where I've heard this.

That is one article specifically about DC and comparing veteran black teachers born & raised in the district to young, inexperienced white "outsiders" who come into DC as "cultural tourists" who are unfamiliar with the communities where they work.

There is plenty of politics in education including the charge that TFA and charter schools are trying to destroy the teachers' unions. I have not heard a bad word toward TFA from an adcom member. I have heard some concerns about applicants who washed out of TFA because of the challenges of teaching in under-resourced facilities with students who were violent or just apathetic.

 

[moisne]

I did TFA for 2 years then went onto doing teaching for a year at my own old high school. I don't think of it as tourism - it was definitely a good experience and lots of work

 

[NicMouse64]

My question is why opponents of TFA are so critical of people from strong science and math backgrounds that do these programs. Isn't it better to have a math major teach math than an education major? The math major can keep things in perspective and really ENJOYS that subject so being passionate with the students and teaching the fundamentals will be more effective. This is just what I think, have no evidence to back it up, and would like someone to give me a reason to change my thought process on this. I don't know how much more effective having a math major teach math in impoverished areas would be.

 

[Dr Stephen T Colbert DFA]

My question is why opponents of TFA are so critical of people from strong science and math backgrounds that do these programs. Isn't it better to have a math major teach math than an education major? The math major can keep things in perspective and really ENJOYS that subject so being passionate with the students and teaching the fundamentals will be more effective. This is just what I think, have no evidence to back it up, and would like someone to give me a reason to change my thought process on this. I don't know how much more effective having a math major teach math in impoverished areas would be.

One of my friends was a math secondary ed major. Even though she didn't have to take as many of the classes math majors take, she still had to take a huge amount of upper division, theoretical math courses as well as stats and programming classes. You still need to know a lot about your subject when you're a secondary ed major.

 

[deleted388502]

My question is why opponents of TFA are so critical of people from strong science and math backgrounds that do these programs. Isn't it better to have a math major teach math than an education major? The math major can keep things in perspective and really ENJOYS that subject so being passionate with the students and teaching the fundamentals will be more effective. This is just what I think, have no evidence to back it up, and would like someone to give me a reason to change my thought process on this. I don't know how much more effective having a math major teach math in impoverished areas would be.

Teaching is not cake. Just because you know the subject and are passionate about it, does not mean you can teach it. There's battles on both sides.

TFA argues, to some respect, what you do, except they believe that if you are driven, motivated, etc as demonstrated by your college record, you can learn the skills education majors learned in four years over a summer (which is a whole nother conversation on it's own...) but, in my opinion this is a huge disrespect to education majors. To me, TFA is placing people who are going to go into other fields to be aware of the realities that the majority of impoverished people face, so they can later make a difference and REALIZE how much education actually shapes this because they saw those realities firsthand.

Effective teaching is not something that happens often during a TFA teacher's first year. And I would honestly argue that TFA's primary goal is not to make the best batch of teachers.

If you go look at any TFA teachers that have won the Teacher of the Year award, it most likely wasn't in their first year, and probably not in their second. Most good teachers are made with experience. While education majors probably aren't winning awards more than non education majors their first year, they at least have stepped foot inside of a classroom and understand what classroom management requires, how to tailor themselves to teach, etc. Most science/math majors (myself included) have NO idea what this requires, and that is SUCH a battle in itself.

If you can't manage your classroom, your students aren't going to learn anything. Doesn't matter how passionate you are.

TFA is not perfect, but no program is. My experience thus far has been decently positive, but by no means is this like a structured job at E&Y that's going to have everything organized and together - this is a grassroots organization that does not have their stuff together in many respects. My response to opponents of TFA is always that. At least TFA is doing something to try to close the educational inequity gap by getting young people inside the classroom to even see what the heck they're up against. That's better than having these people be our future policymakers with no knowledge of what actually goes on.

 

[AllopathicApplicant]

Never once in all my time on the Adcom has any applicant with TFA experience been criticized for that. We highly value applicants with this experience, and teachers in general.

Medical mission? Those we look down upon.

lol didn't I see you on a different thread getting at it with a teacher? Something about a Fulbright?

Anyways, to OP, teaching is very difficult and during the first few months of my own teaching experience, there were times I thought I was going insane. I barely even remember filling up gas and driving off with the pump still in my car (oops!).

But now that I have things prepped and am cognizant of what needs to be done to be a good teacher, I'm much more able. But don't do it for an app boost, because you will curse yourself for eternity!!

 

[ridethecliche]

I happen to think these criticisms are valid (not saying you do or don't @cj_cregg) coming from a program similar to TFA with a lot of knowledge on what TFA is all about. All the same though, it is an incredibly difficult and impressive thing to commit to for 2 years, so much so that quite a few teachers don't make it the full two years.

OP I know a lot of schools will defer your matriculation if you say you are doing TFA. This information is also Google-able.

One of the largest criticisms of TFA is that the highest risk students need the most experienced teachers. Throwing someone naive and inexperienced is not an adequate long term solution.

However, the reality is that the pay structure at those school districts is such that there's no way they're going to recruit those teachers. It's a larger criticism of the state of education in the US more so than TFA in general.

 

[LizzyM]

One of the largest criticisms of TFA is that the highest risk students need the most experienced teachers. Throwing someone naive and inexperienced is not an adequate long term solution.

However, the reality is that the pay structure at those school districts is such that there's no way they're going to recruit those teachers. It's a larger criticism of the state of education in the US more so than TFA in general.

Its not just the pay structures, it is the quality of life in those communities. Many talented, experienced teachers don't want to work in an urban ghetto with students who are not highly motivated and many don't want to live and work in a rural backwater regardless of the pay.

 

[WingedOx]

Its not just the pay structures, it is the quality of life in those communities. Many talented, experienced teachers don't want to work in an urban ghetto with students who are not highly motivated and many don't want to live and work in a rural backwater regardless of the pay.

At least with the urban settings you just hike back home to the trendy gentrified neighborhood where you live when you're done and leave the rest behind. Though FWIW, the people I know who went to rural backwaters reported having a more positive experience than those in cities.

 

[AllopathicApplicant]

At least with the urban settings you just hike back home to the trendy gentrified neighborhood where you live when you're done and leave the rest behind. Though FWIW, the people I know who went to rural backwaters reported having a more positive experience than those in cities.

lol since when can teachers afford to live in "trendy gentrified neighborhoods" ? I lived where most of my inner city students lived during my first year teaching, because I couldn't afford anything!

 

[WingedOx]

lol since when can teachers afford to live in "trendy gentrified neighborhoods" ? I lived where most of my inner city students lived during my first year teaching, because I couldn't afford anything!

six to an apartment still counts, right? though most of the TFA people I knew lived amongst the hipsters...

Depended on the city. St Louis or Rochester, you could rent a palace near the CWE or Park Ave. Chicago you could probably live in Wicker Park back before the strollers moved in. NY or Boston? Forget it.

 

[ridethecliche]

lol since when can teachers afford to live in "trendy gentrified neighborhoods" ? I lived where most of my inner city students lived during my first year teaching, because I couldn't afford anything!

People in their early 20s typically live with other people, especially in cities...

 

[KungFuPanda123]

six to an apartment still counts, right? though most of the TFA people I knew lived amongst the hipsters...

Depended on the city. St Louis or Rochester, you could rent a palace near the CWE or Park Ave. Chicago you could probably live in Wicker Park back before the strollers moved in. NY or Boston? Forget it.

It truly depends 100% on the school at which you are hired. You are 100% funded by the school/district that hires you. If TFA places you in a poor paying school, then you better bet your ass that you're going to live either with roommates or in a not-so-nice area (assuming no financial help from family, friends, etc.). If TFA places you in a decent/well paying school, then you very well might be able to live in a gentrified area (if that is the experience that you want).

I live in the same neighborhood as my students (I see many of them walking back when I get home after school is over). You get a unique experience through TFA when you both WORK with these children and LIVE where they live. You get to see so much more than what you might read on some random education blog or huffingtonpost article.

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People who think of TFA as some version of cultural tourism - the sweat and tears you burn through every day as you fight and advocate for your students' futures is NOT tourism. Cultural tourism is when you join something for such a short period of time that you can smell the end of the experience if the going gets tough/it's not what you expected the program to be. If you realize teaching is not your jam once you start, you have 2 years to either develop a passion or learn how to overcome challenges that seem to have no end. Or, you do what many do and drop out. There is no middle ground where you can dilly dally your way through TFA; too much is at stake - your students' futures, your own happiness, the skills that you can potentially gain... the list goes on. Every person who has completed their 2 years of TFA has come out a person who, whether or not they end up agreeing with TFA's mission statement, is stronger and more knowledgable of society as a result of their experiences. They gain communication skills, life skills, and a heart for communities that are underserved by both our education system and our healthcare system.

I also want to speak from my personal experience with my region regarding TFA teachers replacing veteran teachers (I cannot speak for other regions; however, I can't imagine that they are TOO different in general). As LizzyM stated, veteran teachers often times don't want to stick around in these inner-city schools. Once they've gained the experience that they want, they leave to teach at the local suburban school districts where there are smaller class sizes, more money for classroom resources, more parental attention, higher proficiency in math/english, etc., etc. The teacher that I replaced was a HUGELY ineffective teacher who was let go, not because I was just some cheaper alternative, but because he consistently failed to get his kids at grade level for the subject (he had been at the school for 4 years, so it wasn't a sudden decision based off of 1 year of performance). The same goes for the teachers that my TFA peers replaced. How do we know that we weren't replacing some great, veteran teachers who had to be let go because they were just too expensive? Because our students tell us - the older students who had the previous teachers would tell us about how they wish we had been their teachers. The current students tell us about how much they appreciate us. And often times, the issue isn't a bad teacher that needs replacement; school districts are seeing TONS of high-need teachers leaving - this is mostly science, math, and special education teachers. There are a LOT of vacancies in these positions and a LOT of demand; TFA simply finds recent grads to fill these positions that these school districts would have a hard time recruiting to fill.

I could go on and on, but the bottom line is that you don't have to agree with TFA's mission statement; in fact, many corps members don't (I've found that the biggest critics of TFA are current or past TFA corps members. TFA is VERY open to having open dialogue and critiques, which is great). There is a lot of misunderstanding on how TFA operates, understandably so as every region that TFA operates in is different (rural vs urban, big teacher's union or not, only public schools or charter schools as well, etc. etc.), but you do have to admire the TFA corps members' grit in sticking with an extremely challenging task that so many other more experienced individuals have chosen to leave their posts in.

 

[puglet]

One of my friends was a math secondary ed major. Even though she didn't have to take as many of the classes math majors take, she still had to take a huge amount of upper division, theoretical math courses as well as stats and programming classes. You still need to know a lot about your subject when you're a secondary ed major.

With regards to specific subjects, the problem isn't that education majors with a focus in that subject aren't qualified to teach what they studied and are, in fact, licensed to teach. The problem is that teachers who are not licensed to teach subjects and may not have enough experience in them can be assigned to teach them in districts that either misassign teachers and/or don't have enough teachers to go around for certain subjects.

 

[Vain Brother]

To summarize these criticisms, most college students who are in TFA have no coursework in how to teach other than what TFA provides the summer before their placement, let alone a knowledge of how to teach a classroom full of at-risk kids. They also typically have very little experience with teaching - maybe some tutoring, but not much experience developing lesson plans and other higher-level tasks and activities. However, some school systems are replacing experienced, talented educators with TFA volunteers because it's cheaper. The question is whether this is at the expense of the kids in the classroom. Opponents of TFA would argue that these kids already face plenty of challenges and would benefit more from being taught by the best educators available, rather than some college kid who has no idea what he's doing. Sure, the TFA volunteer gets a great experience and resume booster, but at what cost to the students?

^this

that it's "hard work" outside one's geographic comfort zone is pretty clear, less clear is whether medical school admissions committees care whether the hard work part of a cause actually making the world a better place. (undoubtedly, students do TFA with the noblest of intentions.) the latter seems less important -- after all, ex-military are valued highly, too