Daily Archives: September 4, 2012

Sep 04 2012
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Education Policy

Is Teach for America working?

This past weekend the New York Times’ “Room for Debate” series considered the question: Is Teach for America working? Responses ranged from “It changed my life” to “No” to “If anything, they work to hard.” But the opinion piece that caught my eye was “A Glorified Temp Agency” by University of Texas professor Julian Vazquez Heilig. Essentially, Heilig makes the argument that “more than 80 percent of [TFA] recruits leave for graduate school or another career before their fourth year.” He explains how these teachers “see a teaching stint with Teach for America as simply a résumé builder” and how TFA “is a revolving door of inexperienced teachers for the students who most need a highly qualified one.”

I have heard this criticism before (the prize for most hilarious goes to the Onion’s point/counterpoint article titled “My Year Volunteering As A Teacher Helped Educate a New Generation of Underprivileged Kids vs. Can We Please, Just Once, Have a Real Teacher?”) and it really rankles me. Here’s why:

The problem of educational inequity is caused by a multitude of factors: poverty, poor healthcare, lack of nutrition, underperforming schools, etc. It makes sense that the solution to this problem will be multifaceted as well – there is no silver bullet for the achievement gap. In my mind, we need as many people as possible working towards inventing and implementing various solutions. So when I hear education professors taking education non-profits to task for not doing enough it kind of feels like cannibalism.

I’m not sure if TFA is “working,” or even what that might look like, but I do know it worked for me. I fell in love with teaching the first time I stood in front of my own students on August 25, 2003. I knew, deep in my heart, I was doing at that moment what I would do for the rest of my life. That being said I had (have?) many, many doubts along the way. I did not want to be a teacher because it seemed like settling for 3rd place (not even 2nd!). Our society thinks teaching is really un-sexy and certainly a waste of time if you have any brains or motivation to speak of at all (“Those who can’t do, teach”). Even my own grandmother said, “It’s just that I had such high hopes for you!” and she WAS a teacher herself!

Within Teach for America I found a group of exceptional people who were not only interested in teaching, they loved teaching. People spoke about teaching in hushed tones of reverence and absolutely poured themselves out to be better teachers. As much as I “do my own thing” regardless of what others think, I believe having a community of smart, accomplished people who really value teaching has strengthened my own commitment to the profession. As Arne Duncan said, “Teach for America made teaching cool again.” Add to that the countless resources, examples, role-models, and friends I have encountered through Teach for America and there is no question about the role the organization has played in my life – I am a 10 year classroom teacher because of TFA. Without it, I would be doing something much, much less cool.

Thoughts about TFA?

Sep 04 2012
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Student Motivation

The Best Review Game of All Time

Although there are many elaborate review games out there I only use one – I call it The Game. I did not invent it however I have modified it over the years to be something that works for many grade levels, many contents and many situations. Students always, always love it. The only downside is that it can get so loud your colleagues will wonder what the heck is going on in your room.

Equipment Needed:

  • a small whiteboard for each row in your classroom (like the kind commonly used in math classes)
  • dry erase markers
  • a roll of paper towels to use as cheap-o erasers

The Game:

Teams sit in the same rows (from front of the room to back of the room) and come up with a name for themselves. I give them 90 seconds to think of a name and if they fail to do so or if the name is inappropriate I give them a name (the “electric pink chipmunk eaters” or the “puking pigeons” etc.). Write each team name on the front board and keep a running tally of points under each name. The whiteboards, markers and paper towels are then passed to the very back of the room and held by the last person in each team’s row.

You ask a question and the teams race to write a legible answer on their whiteboards and then pass them to the front of the room. The students in the first row hold up their team’s answer. Anyone on the team can write the answer, not just the last person. So if the last person doesn’t know they just pass the whiteboard up to the teammate that remembers the answer. Two points for the first team with the correct answer at the front and one point for each correct answer that isn’t first to the front. After each questions students move up a desk so that students are constantly on the move both by having to pass the whiteboard and switch desks after each question. This is the beauty of The Game – forced engagement and physical activity.

A few tips: Have students practice with a couple of questions before you start keeping score. This allows them to get the swing of things in a low pressure context. Take off points for trash-talking classmates as well as arguing with you about who was first or legibility issues, etc.

Any other review games folks like to use?