...and why you should too.
First of all I am not talking about the highly profitable non-profit known as “Teach for America” or TFA, an organization which sends “corps members” (their words) into poor schools doing very little for children (as demonstrated by peer-reviewed research) but definitely making the executive board very, very rich...using your tax dollars to boot!
Corps members, no matter how good their intentions may be, are not teachers any more than an undergraduate with 5 weeks of training is a doctor or a lawyer or a masseuse, all of which require some sort of extended period of training before earning a license.
I’m not talking about that TFA because I’ve already problematized it here, and here, and too many to count have done stellar jobs debunking the organization’s claims of success.
Rather, I’m talking about why I teach for the United States of America, flawed as it is with its inequitable distribution of wealth, with its war on women, with its states that engage in a white-washed ethnic cleansing that is reminiscent of the late 1600’s when it was widely acknowledged that most Americans should be kept stupid, and you could be put in jail for teaching a slave to read and write.
Why teach for such a place, and why ask others to do the same?
I teach for America because this country was made, and as it was made it can be remade, so let me stress the FOR because the America I live in today is ground zero FOR becoming the place we read about when we are children, but it won’t be that place without people such as yourself teaching it into existence.
I teach for America everyday that I walk into my classroom(s) in a public university. I am a product of America’s tax-supported public schools from Kindergarten to Ph.D., and thank you (yes you!) for that because there is no way the son of a taxidermist could have done it otherwise.
Today, as I prepare future teachers for future classrooms and future communities, I teach for America.
Let me stress this again: I teach FOR an America that has yet to be realized but shows glimmers of hope. It glimmers when its young and its old transcend race and class and distance and time to fight for a more equitable union, successfully occupying political discourse despite being raised to sit quietly in classrooms waiting for the “teacher” to tell them what to think next.
I teach for an America that shines when over a million people sign a document that essentially says “this is how democracy works, and you aren’t working for democracy so we are giving you the boot” despite never learning in schools that we have the power to fire the people working for us because that lesson is not on the tests, and if children learned that, well, it would be a different United States of America wouldn't it?
I teach for an America that shows serious promise when it begins to turn its back on a dehumanizing, standardized approach to schooling and embraces educational reform that helps all children mature into adults with the skills and capacities necessary to realize and maintain an organic democratic social order.
Teaching for that America is something I feel pretty damn good about.
I teach for America because I have students (future teachers) who write “A good teacher doesn’t worry about test scores; they worry about those who are taking the test” and on the days when I read that America is going to test children at younger and younger ages, and I want to quit my job and track ponies, I remember that there are brilliant people out there who want to teach for America understanding that teaching is more than testing, and learning doesn’t matter if at the end of the day you have memorized facts but cannot use those facts to change the world.
Are you one of those brilliant people? If you are, we need you.
I teach for an America struggling to regain its footing on a trembling world stage, a country home to tens (hundreds?) of millions of people who believe that we don’t have to sacrifice human spirit in a relentless pursuit to raise human capital, though our voices may be hard to hear over those who look at children and see dollar signs.
Do you see the value of a child given time to play and create before we train her for work?
If so, you are wanted, needed...
I teach for America as I prepare future teachers to teach in our small city with its growing population of poor, homeless, hungry children, and because you and I are separated only by space, time, and antiquated beliefs, I teach for your cities and your children as I teach for an America that colors itself a country where all students are treated equally regardless of their zip codes.
And here I am pointing at you like the old man in the picture, and I’m telling you that we want you, that we need you to teach for America, but do yourself and our country a favor and reject the worthless 5 week boot camp and dedicate yourself to helping us create a profession that commands the respect given in countries that value teachers more than athletes and entertainers.
I’ll humbly suggest that we double the pay and make it thrice as hard to get into teacher education programs, and we’ll be on our way towards parity with countries such as Finland, BUT doing so won’t be nearly enough, not if we continue to ignore the macroeconomic conditions that undeniably propel some American children to the top of the world while leaving far too many American children at the bottom (scroll down).
You don’t have to be an elite Ivey Leaguer to teach for America, but you must have a ton of heart and soul and spirit and fortitude, un-teachable traits to be sure, but reader, if you can circle all-of-the-above, and you want to be the change you wish to see in the world then come on. We need your help to teach for an America quilted together by democratic fibers, and hurry up because the threads of empty rhetoric are fraying, and I teach for an America that could very much come apart at the seams.
Are you looking for a career helping children to develop the skills and capacities necessary to create and recreate a more democratic United States of America? If so, contact your local department of education; we very much want you to be part of our team(s).