Editor’s Note: Rob Jones ’17 is the 2015-2016 Chair of Academic Affairs for SGA, and is enrolled in the College’s teacher certification program.
Taking Foundations of Education with Professor of Education Michael James marked a turning point for me at Conn. Halfway through my first year here, I was still adjusting to a new country and a new way of life (cliche, I’m aware). Through the readings of the renowned radical Brazilian educator and philosopher Paolo Freire, my mind was opened to the wonderful things that can happen in a classroom: Children can be given the tools to liberate their own minds in ways that many of us at Conn never did before we got here.
More importantly, I learned how problematic schooling can be. From the forced removal of Native American children from their communities to No Child Left Behind, it is apparent that education in this country is rife with unfairness. The Education Certification program aims to “prepare educators who see schooling as an opportunity to create a multiracial, multi-vocal democracy capable of addressing the serious social, economic and environmental issues in contemporary society.” In short, those who leave Connecticut College with a professional education certificate will be just that: professional.
For far too long, this college has had ties with an organization that compromises professionalism in the classroom at the expense of teachers and students alike: Teach for America. The Education Department has not sanctioned this affiliation, and has even actively rallied against it.
Teach for America is perhaps the most dangerous organization in the US education system today. It pumps unqualified, unrepresentative and often privileged college students into school districts desperately in need of experienced, local teachers. TFA participants receive just six weeks training; Connecticut College trained educators take a minimum of eight preparatory classes in conjunction with a semester spent student teaching before entering a classroom.
I’d like to invite you to envision this situation in a different context: Connecticut College signs up to promote a new charity which seeks to increase the number of doctors. This hypothetical organization, which I will term Heal for America, takes college students, “trains” them for six weeks and puts them into an ER department in a major urban city. Would anyone comfortably trust these people with their lives? The answer is probably no. Yet we know that for this reason Teach for America is hugely harmful to students, and still as a college we continue to promote it.
One example of this is the fact that TFA is funded in large part by corporations like Walmart and thus benefits from capitalism while simultaneously going into schools in areas ruined by it. Another is the fact that TFA trains participants to get the best possible standardized test results out of its students. This is symptomatic of wider flaws in the education system, and by treating students as numbers, TFA perpetuates a cycle that overwhelmingly favors white, middle to upper class students.
This is not only unjust but immoral. As long as the College continues to promote TFA, it will continue to be a willing participant in the oppression of students in low-income areas. For a college that is already overwhelmingly white and privileged, is this really the kind of educational “progress” in which we want to participate? Even if it does provide jobs for a small number of Conn graduates, TFA takes away many more from certified teachers in areas like Chicago and New Orleans. Corporation-controlled charter schools often do not want to pay for experienced, local teachers, and the alternative to being forced to do this (by those nasty unions trying to protect teachers and their students) is Teach for America.
Regardless of what you may think of unions, taking teachers who have invested their lives in often vulnerable communities and replacing them with someone willing to work for a lot less is plainly wrong. I’m not doubting that some TFA participants have a genuine desire to teach. But if you have a desire to teach at the expense of other teachers, you might not want to dedicate yourself (even for the two years required by TFA) to improving the lives of others.
I invite anyone interested in education to seek out the department, located in Bolles House, to discuss ways you can join. Even if one has left it too late to join the certification program, there are numerous Masters programs in which one can participate.
On a more positive note, this college has the chance to be a pioneer. I have written, with the help of the Education Student Advisory Board, an SGA resolution recommending the discontinuation of TFA promotion on campus. If it passes, the student body will send a powerful message to the administration that an organization as harmful as TFA is not welcome at an institution built on principles of social justice. By putting our foot down, we can continue producing educators with developed principles who want to build relationships with the communities they enter while no longer having to associate ourselves with the opposing reality of Teach for America’s harmful practices.
