He never thought it would be so hard. For two years Tyler Haupert woke up put on his tie and headed to another long day of teaching. Unknowing what he would be faced with in a given day he could only hope not be the target of any physical assaults like other teachers at the school had been. After all he had not forgotten the time when a student threw a dictionary at him from across the classroom and did not receive so much as a suspension.
After graduating from Pepperdine in 2008 Haupert traded in his native California beaches for the sugar cane fields of New Roads La. He worked in New Roads a town of about 5000 people as a teacher for Teach for America.
As a political science major at Pepperdine he said the thought of becoming a teacher did not cross his mind until his senior year when he received an e-mail about TFA.
A highly competitive program TFA that recruits bright highly motivated college graduates to teach for two years in low-income communities throughout the country. With TFA’s prestige and numerous benefits such as loan deferment a steady paycheck and health coverage it is no surprise that it attracts many soon-to-be college graduates especially in hard financial times.
TFA began in 1990 after a student at Princeton proposed the idea in her senior undergraduate thesis. Since then the program has experienced a steady growth. This year they broke their applicant record once again with 46000 applications accepting 12 percent of those applicants.
And there is reason to believe that more growth is on the way. With evidence suggesting the program’s success in classrooms in August TFA was awarded a $50 million federal grant that will help the program to expand and perhaps nearly double in the next four years.
TFA gives its employees an intensive five-week training course before sending them off to some of the country’s lowest-income communities. There is a stark contrast between TFA’s training program and Pepperdine’s Multiple Subject Credential Program which requires 36 units of coursework and for students to spend a total of 250 hours in classrooms as a student teacher.
Teach for America says that its purpose is to combat a national injustice by improving the education system. Since so many Pepperdine students are concerned with addressing social injustices it is not surprising that a large amount feel drawn to TFA.
In fact 18 Pepperdine students committed to the program for the 2009-2010 school year making TFA Seaver College’s top employer in 2009.
Carrie Birmingham an associate professor of teacher education does not agree that TFA is the solution to the complex problems that plague America’s education system.
“Students who are interested in Teach for America really want to do something good for kids; they really do she said. So I’m not saying that the students going into it are wrong but there is a problem with the way the system is set up.
“Because Teach for America can go into classrooms with really bright students who may survive or even do well as a beginning teacher that means the school districts and the states and the federal government don’t need to address that need because ‘we’ve got people in those classrooms.'”
Haupert currently working on his master’s in urban planning at Harvard said he never anticipated how difficult teaching would be.
“There [was] a complete lack of control of things like dress code and cursing and physical violence Haupert said. We [saw] a lot of fights at least two or three a week sometimes two or three a day.”
Although he said he felt prepared in regard to teaching strategies and how to write lesson plans he said he was not prepared to deal with classroom management.
“It’s one of those things that you just can’t be prepared for managing the kids until you’ve experienced the uncontrollable behavior that can happen if you don’t have a firm grip on it he said.
Emmylou Eby, who also graduated in 2008, had a similar experience. Eby, who majored in psychology and minored in social work, decided to do TFA because she loved participating in the Jumpstart program.
I thought it would be just like doing Jumpstart after graduation she said. But it’s a lot harder than I thought it would be.”
Eby spent her two years teaching in Hartford Conn. which has some of the poorest performing schools in the state. She spent her first year teaching sixth grade and her second year teaching third grade. She said she observed numerous disciplinary problems including cursing and fighting which she said was the most common even among her third grade class.
“In the sixth grade two of my students were expelled in October and I think only two of my students made it through the year without being suspended once she said. It was a tough class.”
Eby said her third-grade class was made up of 25 children six of whom had special needs. She recalled a day when one of them brought marijuana to school.
In addition to a big drug problem in the school Eby said she learned that some of the students were homeless. With the school’s administration overwhelmed by an overload of disciplinary problems much of the responsibility fell on her.
Even in a difficult classroom Eby said that TFA does a great job in preparing graduates for the limited time they have. She also said that she believes she could have benefited from studying education at Pepperdine which she said may have given her more confidence.
“I definitely felt out of my league on the first day and really for the whole first year she said.
Haupert, on the other hand, said he did not think he would have felt much better prepared if he had studied education at Pepperdine, as he thought previous teaching experience in a low-income district may have been the sole method of preparation.
Carrie Wall, a visiting instructor of education disagrees. She said Pepperdine’s education program helps students to understand not only what they teach but also whom they are teaching through classes like child and adolescent development, educational psychology, school and society, literacy theory and teaching methodology.
There is this incredible preparation she said. There are so many challenges to teachers with linguistically culturally diverse students and class sizes growing. Teachers need to be experts in classroom management.”
Wall said she believes education students are extremely well prepared because they’ve already wrestled with some of the issues that they will see.
She described “differentiation which she said is a big word in education. It means knowing how to accommodate all learners in a classroom setting. She said all of the education students are familiar with the term.
Our students think in those ways she said. When you have a five-week institute you can’t even begin to explore the depths that our students do.”
Although both Eby and Haupert had very challenging experiences they both said they do not regret the decision to do TFA.
“I’m definitely glad that I did it he sai
d. If I hadn’t been here [my students] would have probably been taught by a long-term substitute teacher who probably wasn’t certified and didn’t really know how to teach.”
d. If I hadn’t been here [my students] would have probably been taught by a long-term substitute teacher who probably wasn’t certified and didn’t really know how to teach.”
Birmingham explained the schools that these recent graduates are being sent to really need “expert” teachers and administrative support if they want to correct their deep-rooted problems.
“You wouldn’t want to be operated on by a someone who has completed just one semester of medical school or defended by a lawyer who has only completed one semester of law school.”
She said she estimates most people in suburbs and affluent communities probably would not want their own children to be taught by teachers who were not yet credentialed.
“An expert teacher needs to be in there and also the school needs to address their systematic problems she said. Teach for America is a stop-gap measure but not the solution.”