a brief trip down memory's dirtiest alley
A really nice, honest article in the Village Voice about the Teaching Fellows program, of which I am a survivor / victim. It's always perversely comforting to read others' horror stories.
Your Own Personal Blackboard Jungle.
I particularly liked this paragraph:
Fellows interviewed for this article unanimously recommended that the Department of Education arrange more in-classroom apprenticeship or student-teaching time for its fellows.
"I really think the DoE needs to put their money where their mouth is and pay for teaching fellows to have as long as they can-ideally a full year-to be an assistant teacher in a classroom," Greenwald said. "If the DoE would pay for that, teachers would be better equipped to succeed."
Word.
I think it's really telling when the people in the program are saying, Uh, we're not really ready to teach and we're kind of incompetent. It takes an extreme situation for people to be willing to admit that-especially, in my experience, the sort of people who tend to join NYCTF. But that's just the reality, it can't be denied: the summer training is insufficient (and the mid-year Fellows have it even worse).
Even given all the inherent injustices of the entire public school system, there's no doubt in my mind that NYCTF specifically could be done better. (I really like Math For America's model, for example, where teachers do an entire year of student-teaching + Master's work and then commit to four years in the classroom. My good friend DB is in that program.) And I really believe that these oversights and flaws are no accident-The Powers That Be fear what would happen if too large a percentage of the city's teaching corps became real career teachers and stayed in the system for 20-some years.
Your Own Personal Blackboard Jungle.
I particularly liked this paragraph:
Fellows interviewed for this article unanimously recommended that the Department of Education arrange more in-classroom apprenticeship or student-teaching time for its fellows.
"I really think the DoE needs to put their money where their mouth is and pay for teaching fellows to have as long as they can-ideally a full year-to be an assistant teacher in a classroom," Greenwald said. "If the DoE would pay for that, teachers would be better equipped to succeed."
Word.
I think it's really telling when the people in the program are saying, Uh, we're not really ready to teach and we're kind of incompetent. It takes an extreme situation for people to be willing to admit that-especially, in my experience, the sort of people who tend to join NYCTF. But that's just the reality, it can't be denied: the summer training is insufficient (and the mid-year Fellows have it even worse).
Even given all the inherent injustices of the entire public school system, there's no doubt in my mind that NYCTF specifically could be done better. (I really like Math For America's model, for example, where teachers do an entire year of student-teaching + Master's work and then commit to four years in the classroom. My good friend DB is in that program.) And I really believe that these oversights and flaws are no accident-The Powers That Be fear what would happen if too large a percentage of the city's teaching corps became real career teachers and stayed in the system for 20-some years.