TFA wants to hear from me?
Teach for America sent me an email. At first I did not know it as from them. The message lie asked me what ONE book I thought all kids should read. It was from a person I did not know, but I am used to getting these kinds of requests from time to time (after all I am the goddess of YA, LOL). So, I read on and discovered that this person wanted to make sure kids have love affairs with reading ow more than ever. I continued to read and then there was info about TFA, a nonprofit that is doing wonderful work in schools. I stopped there, wondered how I was on this list, and deleted the message.
TFA has a full 5 weeks of training before becoming "teachers." They enter classrooms for a short period of time generally. They receive compensation and benefits. Just like those of us who went to college and entered a teacher education program and spent more than 2 years studying how to be an effective teacher. TFA is the school of education for some of our "leaders" in education today. And therein lies a problem, a big one. We have leaders who have little education in teacher education and even less classroom experience. I think we are the ONLY profession where it is acceptable to lead when you do not know the profession.
Saturday at NCTE, I was involved to be part of a panel that featured A.S. King, Mark Letcher, Cindy Minnich, and Kim McCollum Clark. It was a talk back to CCSS session. It was lovely to be among my peeps. We talked about the issues, the people, the fears, the lies. I left feeling empowered.
TFA has a full 5 weeks of training before becoming "teachers." They enter classrooms for a short period of time generally. They receive compensation and benefits. Just like those of us who went to college and entered a teacher education program and spent more than 2 years studying how to be an effective teacher. TFA is the school of education for some of our "leaders" in education today. And therein lies a problem, a big one. We have leaders who have little education in teacher education and even less classroom experience. I think we are the ONLY profession where it is acceptable to lead when you do not know the profession.
Saturday at NCTE, I was involved to be part of a panel that featured A.S. King, Mark Letcher, Cindy Minnich, and Kim McCollum Clark. It was a talk back to CCSS session. It was lovely to be among my peeps. We talked about the issues, the people, the fears, the lies. I left feeling empowered.