Class Action

...As President Clinton might say, we don't have a child to waste...

...What passed for a "lesson" in these education classes was often nothing more than passing out a reading and then reshuffling "cooperative" groups to discuss it while the instructor sat at a desk...

...Ernie, a born entertainer turned gang member, never turned in any work, but had an uncanny talent for mimicking me, which he did constantly: "Unacceptable...

...I was unready for the illiterate student who, after sitting mute at the back of my classroom for months, dropped out to take a job fixing cars for the school district...

...Most student teachers report either watching as the master teacher teaches, or being left to teach on their own and occasionally getting a few pointers (if the master teacher is even in the room...

...But my first year merits careful examination, especially as it seems to have been fairly typical for TFAers...

...Just one of many frustrations was being told I was unfit to teach the subjects I had studied in college...

...I lacked the skills to "manage" the behavior of a student whose parents suggested slugging her in the mouth if she talked back...

...most teacher recruits would presumably spend most or all of that time teaching...

...The first step is recruitment...

...Gina, whose mother refused to allow her to take medication for her hyperactivity, cursed and yelled when I asked her to sit and be quiet...

...Because the classroom is such a familiar and uncomplicated place for most people, it's hard to see that developing and executing a good curriculum is about as simple as composing and performing a June 1993/The Washington Monthly 25 good symphony...

...One of a score of TFAers selected from over 100 Yale seniors who applied, I had had the best education money can buy...

...Due to an oddity of the schedule, I ended up with an English class with four students in it...

...It's worth it...

...The last straw came at the beginning of my second quarter, after a brutal round of budget cuts, when one associate dean advised me resignedly, "Don't worry about the subject matter...

...He recently earned his California teaching credential...

...Pasadena, to anyone outside southern California, is the sunny home of the Rose Parade, the Super Bowl, and Cal Tech—not as tough as L.A...

...Bill for the MTV generation, promises college grants and loans for young people, "and some who aren't so young," willing, among other things, "to serve in our schools as teachers or tutors in reading and mathematics...

...Although I had earned Distinction in sociology at Yale and had taken several courses in history and psychology, Cal State declared that I would need 14 more courses before I could teach social studies...

...I struggled desperately to improve the situation—games, conferences, calls home, pleading and threatening, everything but juggling and standing on my head—but positions were fixed, trenches dug for a battle that was to last all year...

...Luckily, my mentor was a gifted, award-winning social studies teacher from New York City...

...TFA offers good evidence to counter my generation's reputation of apathy toward public service...

...I think the class is bored," I wrote...

...There is much to work with here...

...For the first few months, my double-period teaching blocks—I taught two 9th grade English and social studies classes and one senior literature class—yawned open as terrifying blocks of unplanned time...

...Not such a bad thing...

...I tried to figure out what would get me through the next day, not what would make me a better teacher...

...The structure is not the problem...

...He was right...

...The initial instruction in methods, history, and regulations should be kept short—eight weeks is probably the right length—since little can be learned without hands-on practice...

...Neither is adequate...

...A week later, while I was still sleeping on sofa pillows spread out on the floor, I showed up for my first day of work at Pasadena High School...

...But I was not ready...

...Boredom and frustration set in, intensified by the first set of grades, more than 80 percent of which were Fs in one class...

...Candidates must be screened rigorously for both their ability to communicate and their seriousness...

...That may be long enough to train neighborhood clean-up workers or even police auxiliaries, but is it enough for teachers...

...Who's to say the work of a teacher is less complicated...

...An apprenticeship...

...My lessons were good, designed to demand meaningful thought and hard work...

...Class war Two years later, however, things are incomparably better...

...He watched each of us teach, offered support and criticism, and occasionally presented a lesson of his own as a model...

...Training wreck In many ways, I'm typical of the surprisingly large number of applicants who went after TFA's first 500 slots three years ago...

...Giving the least experienced teachers the toughest classes to teach is a stupid combination, even for the most eager of young teachers...

...Expectations must be placed on the master teacher...

...Nor could they think of a significant event that happened between 1925 and 1945...

...As is so commonly—and problematically—the case, our student teaching roles in the classrooms varied widely...

...I clearly remember Chris, an able and kind student who would have been in private school but for his father's desire to see him learn to relate with "all kinds of people"—perhaps, his mother admitted, at the expense of his education...

...The morning 9th-grade class was a rough mix...

...Though I would not have admitted it at the time, I, perhaps like most TFAers, harbored dreams of liberating my students from public school mediocrity and offering them as good an education as I had received...

...If we're going to encourage short stays in teaching, it becomes especially important to enable teachers to hit the ground running...

...Class Action What Clinton's national service program could learn from Teach for America by Jonathan Schorr For a guy who isn't known for making short speeches, President Clinton can pack a lot into a few words...

...In a typed response, my mentor sympathized, recalled similar experiences in his own work, suggested articles to read, and consoled: "Your advice to yourself is right on target...

...Other so-called "mentors" dropped the full load of planning, teaching, and grading on the TFA neophyte, sometimes even leaving the student teacher alone in the room...

...The 9th grade is the most important year for an at-risk student...

...Developed by Princeton undergraduate Jonathan Schorr is in his third year of teaching English, history, and journalism at Pasadena High School...

...I cleared out my dorm room and found an apartment in Pasadena...

...Just take whatever you can get into...

...Unacceptable...

...My needs were clear: instruction in how to teach my specific subjects...

...More training before I entered the classroom would have done little because I didn't know how to understand what I was being told, 26 The Washington Monthly/June 1993 just as exhortations to "keep your balance" mean little to someone who has never ridden a bicycle...

...You are your own worst critic...

...a chance to ask questions about lesson plans and about how to deal with difficult students...

...I began at Cal State University...

...Once the recruits have been selected, they must be trained more effectively than TFAers are now...

...Or we might watch a sample lesson prepared by a student who had never taught a class...

...All of it would have worked better if we had had the guidance of a strong mentor once we were in the classroom full time, perhaps with a reduced load the first year and then a second year at full speed...

...California, like many other states, has responded to its teacher shortage by issuing emergency teaching credentials, renewable as long as the teacher is taking education courses...

...many of my superiors call me an exemplary young teacher, and I love my work...

...In fact, the frequent TFA small-group meetings with a mentor teacher were the best part of that summer's training, though their value depended entirely on the talent of the mentor...

...Instead, the first-year teacher's workday might include only half a day or so of teaching—at least, one or two hours a day should be free for this work—so that training and reflection will not compete for time with preparation...

...Pilots learn to fly and surgeons to operate with a master by their side...

...Clearly, traditional teacher education does not hold the answers, regardless of time constraints...

...I had it easy compared to my TFA-trained colleague who had her bulletin board burned down and her car stolen by her students...

...Perhaps college students and recent graduates could easily serve as tutors and teachers' aides, but Clinton's plan calls for some to work as full-time teachers as well...

...Learning to teach cannot be seen as a small commitment, relegated to evenings when the workday is done...

...Perhaps so—in the few cases where the mentor teacher commits the same energy to teaching the young teacher as she would to teaching her students...

...And there were learning-disabled students (reading at 3rd and 5th grade levels), severe behavior problems, students who spoke little English, petty (and not-so-petty) criminals, and so on...

...Overall, the president is asking for one or two years of service...

...My experience was somewhere in the middle: I taught one two-hour class solo and observed another...

...And while it takes five years to qualify to teach in most states, Clinton proposes sending those national service recruits into the classroom with just eight weeks of training...

...The afternoon's TFA Institute classes ran the gamut: classroom management seminars, methods of teaching particular subjects, prep courses for the many standardized tests we faced, lectures introducing us to the law, history, and theory surrounding education, and discussions of multicultural and bilingual education...

...Luther, a 15-year-old father-to-be, was so stoned once that he asked to be excused to go to a doctor's appointment scheduled two weeks earlier...

...Yes, this will cost money...

...And it may be reasonable to demand a time commitment—say two years instead of one—from the teacher in return for the investment...

...Day after day, he sat silently at the back of the room, asking me with his eyes why I couldn't control the class and teach him a bit more...

...Teaching, like other crafts, requires slowly building responsibility...

...in return for two years of mentoring, the nascent Teachers For Chicago demands a four-year commitment to teaching...

...or New York City...

...Grading was a breeze, but planning lessons was not, and I was up far too late every night...

...Typical of the way he nudged us along was the journal he required me to keep...

...As Clinton looks for a model of a crash course for teachers, TFA's eight-week program is an obvious choice, and TFA in fact has submitted a proposal to the president's Commission on National and Community Service...

...Quickly, I developed a pragmatic approach to my classes...

...If anything, theoretical training ought to be specific to the subject a given teacher is slated to teach...

...He engaged each of us personally...

...Many of mine, unable even to visualize passing, took long steps on the path toward dropping out...

...For others who were more motivated and academically able, the control battle in my classroom wasted their time...

...So what would have prepared me for that first year...

...the master teacher also must be selected carefully...

...After two years of so-called teacher education, I can say that virtually nothing of what I know came from those classes...

...Some of what we learned, especially classroom management and routines, was useful...

...The national service program could offer a bold new model for training teachers correctly, even within the confines of a one- or two-year commitment...

...This is one of the hardest points to make to non-teachers...

...The current spotlight on service, and the creative thinking going into it, is an important step toward recognizing all the problems in education...

...Yet, a month after I graduated from college, I found myself at Manual Arts High School in South Central Los Angeles as part of the TFA Summer Institute...

...Defenders of the current model argue that student teaching is already a form of apprenticeship...

...I regard myself as competent...

...Indeed, I chose to stay on past the two years I promised TFA and complete my teaching credential...

...No one who has taught in an urban public school will be surprised by this litany...

...In the State of the Union address in January, at Rutgers University in March, and again in New Orleans on the 100th day of his administration, Clinton boldly pledged to include the nation's public schools in his national service program...

...execution is...

...The plan, something of a G.I...

...and time, always a teacher's most precious commodity...

...But my own rocky experience in TFA's first corps of teachers tells me—and ought to tell the president's planners—that a quick course and a year in the classroom without the support to make that year successful is a waste of the enormous potential of a young, energetic teaching force...

...I need to inject excitement and creativity...

...Summer school practice teaching in the morning was followed by a mix of classes, seminars, and discussions in the afternoon at the TFA Institute at the University of Southern California...

...it's utterly typical...

...someone to push me to think about and critique my own work...

...Most important, we cannot allow a generation of students to be guinea pigs for poorly trained teachers from either traditional or newfangled schools of education...

...Many TFA student teachers were consigned to the back of the room, observing the "master" teacher at work and occasionally making cameos before the class...

...In one frustrated entry, I listed some of the things my students didn't know, including the number of justices on the Supreme Court (guesses were 28, 36, and 2...

...I was pronounced similarly unqualified in English, in which I had done extensive coursework as well...

...Spending three or four hours at this after a day of teaching, when I could have been working on the five lessons I had to prepare each day, nearly drove me mad...

...After nine years at Washington's Sidwell Friends School, which the president's daughter has made famous, and four years at Yale, I could have counted on my fingers the number of times I had been inside a public school...

...The eight weeks of TFA training were a jumble...

...Moreover, rewards—both in money and in compensatory time—must reflect the importance of the mentor's task...

...The courses I took at three different colleges over the two years I pursued my California teaching credential proved that to me...

...Wendy Kopp (with whom Clinton met during his Rutgers visit) and kicked off in 1990, TFA sends college graduates to teach for two years in understaffed schools...

...But Pasadena has its inner city, too, plus enough private schools (they outnumber public schools two to one) to drain off nearly all of the city's affluent families...

...Often he untangled our classroom problems on grading, discipline, or getting across a complicated concept...

...I was not a successful teacher, and the loss to the students was real and large...

...Unless teachers are smartly selected, trained, and supervised, little of use will be accomplished except the soothing of New Democratic consciences...

...I had thought I was ready...

...As bad as it was for me, it was worse for the students...

...Moreover, in the hazing that is typical at every school (and, of course, in many professions), I as the new teacher was given one of the school's toughest 9th grade classes, which was filled with "social promotions"—students who had not passed the 8th grade but were simply moved along with their classmates...

...The idea, like Boston's community service-oriented City Year and the Peace Corps in the sixties, is exciting, but it's not as simple as it sounds...

...But much of it—the fundamentals and general theory of education—had little relevance to our daily work...

...Mario, who had already been to jail—for truancy—took a pair of bolt cutters into the school bicycle cage and tried to steal a bike as I watched...

...Reflection-and-critique sessions, probably best done in a group of young teachers with two or three experienced leaders, could easily be made a requirement of the Clinton program...

...And worse still, no two of the five-and-a-half classes I taught each day were the same...

...Such an idea is not unprecedented...

...And despite volunteer tutoring in the City Lights school for emotionally disturbed and delinquent children in Washington and in the New Haven Juvenile Detention Center, I had never given serious thought 24 The Washington Monthly/June 1993 to teaching...

...Talking ed Soon, however, the student teaching, seminars, mentor groups, motivational meetings, and bad USC chicken were over...

...Teach For America (TEA), the recent private reincarnation of the sixties Teacher Corps, says yes...

...I was knowledgeable and excited...

...The first hurdle, which took me months to clear, was simply writing daily lesson plans...

...I was advised to keep my 9th graders on their toes by switching activities every 10 or 20 minutes—meaning at least five different activities for each class...