While I wait for my pre-institute work to arrive, and since I’ve been done with classes since December, I’ve been reading everything I can get my hands on relating to TFA, education inequality, first year stories of teaching, etc, etc.
So far I’ve read and would recommend the following books:
*Wendy Kopp’s One Day, All Children…
*Relentless Pursuit: A Year in the Trenches with Teach for America by Donna Foote
*Work Hard. Be Nice.: How Two Inspired Teachers Created the Most Promising Schools in America by Jay Mathews
But out of the all the books I’ve read thus far, Jonathan Kozol’s Letters to a Young Teacher has been a particular favorite. His first hand accounts of not only the devastating educational problems our country’s students face, but also the wonderful way in which he approaches teaching and children, make the book a great read. Some of the other books can get, at times, a bit bogged down in statistics and educational lingo that can certainly intimidate someone just first getting their feet wet in education reform. Kozol instead speaks intelligently but in lay mans terms. However, this approach doesn’t dumb down the material, just the opposite in fact. I think it’s easier to really connect to what he’s saying because he’s written it without many bells and whistles.
Now, I realize Kozol may not be TFA’s favorite educator. He abhors high stakes testing and standard based curriculum. However, whatever differences there may be in approach, Kozol wants the very same of our students that Teach for America does… A fair fighting chance at an exceptional education.
I thought I would share one of the passages that stood out for me:
…Many of these kids cannot constructively participate in class discussions because they have never learned in elementary school to ask discerning questions or to analyze or to criticize complex ideas. The children of the suburbs learn to think and to interrogate reality; the inner-city kids meanwhile are trained for nonreflective acquiescence. One race and social class is educated for the exploration of ideas and for political sagacity and future economic power; the other is prepared for intellectual subordination. The longer this goes on, I’m afraid the vast divide that we already see within American society is going to grow wider.
Being placed in elementary education, this thought really resonates with me. Besides the great learning leaps my students will have to make next year, I’d also like to try my hardest to make sure my classroom is a safe and creative space where young children can learn not only from their books, but from each other, from exploring the world around them and by finding fascination in the smallest of everyday things as children often do.
The more I read, the more nervous I become, but I’m so excited to begin this journey. I’m ready to start working towards being the best teacher I can be for my students and learning everything I can along the way. I’ve started collecting books and other little things, the hand me downs of family friends that teach, that might be useful/helpful in my classroom- and if not in mine, due to grade level etc., then certainly in one of my co-workers or peers. But what I’m really waiting for is that pre-institute work which I think will get the ball rolling on making it all a bit more real.
Until next time…
