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Students teach in low-income schools
Published: 04-27-12
In the most poverty-stricken areas of the nation, the opportunity for a good education can be hindered because of low income. In an effort to create change, seven seniors from Columbia will contribute their knowledge to public schools across the country.
Blair Mishleau, senior interdisciplinary arts major, is one of seven graduating students selected for the Teach For America program, which provides training to teach at public schools in low-income areas located across the U.S. Mishleau will be teaching in Minneapolis during the two-year program. | Courtesy BLAIR MISHLEAU
In its third year at Columbia, the Teach For America program chose the following seniors for 2012: dance major Brittany Branson; Alison Divino, humanities, history and social sciences major; interdisciplinary arts major Caro Griffin; English major Rahul Gupta; Blair Mishleau, interdisciplinary arts major and American sign language minor; and fiction writing majors Nikki Muir and Robert Walberg.
The acceptance rate nationwide is approximately 10 percent, and for the third year in a row, Columbia is well above that percentage, said Andrew Whatley, assistant dean of Faculty Advising and LAS Initiatives and associate director of the honors program.
“You look at two things: the students they’re accepting, [who] are very bright, committed, dedicated young people who demonstrated leadership skills throughout their undergraduate careers,” Whatley said. “Secondly, you’d look at the other end, where alumni of Teach For America remain in the classroom teaching and are excellent teachers, and many go on to
administration positions.”
Divino, a rural Kentucky native who first considered the program during her sophomore year, is currently interviewing for schools in the Mississippi Delta area in hopes of teaching reading and language arts. During her three-and-a-half years at Columbia, she was a youth tutor for the Center for Community Arts partnerships, a research assistant for the Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women & Gender in Arts & Media and president and vice president of the Asian Student Organization.
Prior to college, she racked up volunteer hours by tutoring refugees in Southeast Asia before she was aware of her potential candidacy for Teach For America.
“I was always around the children, talking and laughing,” Divino said. “I think that’s when I realized I wanted to work with children for a career. But I didn’t put the pieces together that I wanted to be a teacher until I started tutoring.”
While no degree in education is mandatory, the Teach For America program requires participants to receive additional training in teaching, according to its website.
However, degrees offered by Columbia do not limit the content in core education classes, Whatley said.
“Bringing an art background can only enhance delivery and understanding of those subject matters,” he said.
After volunteering with Teach For America for two years, Michael Lencioni, a 2010 Columbia film & video graduate, now teaches humanities at Curtis Bay Elementary and Middle School in Baltimore.
Lencioni said 100 percent of his focus is on his students, unlike in college where he focused solely on his own work. At Curtis Bay Elementary, he met with a parent who wasn’t able to arrange a conference other than during his third-shift lunch break at 2 a.m. But meeting with parents who are working two or three jobs is not uncommon, he said.
Lencioni laughed when he described his “great” students as a “bag of firecrackers” because of their mixed experiences and high energy.
“In a lot of ways, they are older and wiser than their years based on some of the experiences they’ve been in and the ways they were brought up,” Lencioni said. “But also, they have that childlike ability to look at the world in its simplest terms and just ask the questions that no one seems to be looking at.”
Mishleau, who will be teaching English as a second language in Minneapolis, said that cultural background plays a large role in comprehension.
For instance, literal translations of idioms, like “it’s raining cats and dogs,” could be confusing for non-English speakers, he said.
Divino said that low-income and culturally diverse students have just as much ability to learn as their wealthy counterparts.
“I want all of my students to realize that that’s certainly a myth and that your socioeconomic factors don’t rule you,” she said. “With quality education, good teachers and great relationships, you can succeed, go to college, come back to your community and change your community the way you want to see it changed.”
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I wish these young people would reconsider entering teaching through TFA. If they truly wish to become educators, isn’t it worth it to their future students to be adequately prepared before stepping foot in the classroom? TFA’s “training” is a minimal 5 week boot camp with little time spent actually working with children often not even in the same subject matter or grade level where they will ultimately teach. And if teaching in not their ultimate goal, why not volunteer in a capacity where they are not actively denying poor children a fully trained and prepared teacher? In today’s economy, teacher shortages are rare. So why is Teach for America expanding?
While I’m sure these folks have good intentions, Teach for America the organization has become part of the problem in education. Corporate education reform is selling our schools to private interests. Districts around the country are misusing idealistic young people like these as a cheap labor source and to break unions. Please listen to these reports from Education Radio about “The Sham of Teach for America” http://education-radio.blogspot.com/2012/04/ongoing-sham-of-teach-for-america-part_15.html and http://education-radio.blogspot.com/2012/04/sham-of-teach-for-america-part-on.html Also, here is an article entitled “Teach for America: The Hidden Curriculum of Liberal Do-Gooders” http://jacobinmag.com/winter-2012/teach-for-america/ Lastly, for more information about what Teach for America has unfortunately become see a former alums post “Why I did TFA, and why you shouldn’t” http://garyrubinstein.teachforus.org/2011/10/31/why-i-did-tfa-and-why-you-shouldnt/