I will protect your pensions. Nothing about your pension is going to change when I am governor. - Chris Christie, "An Open Letter to the Teachers of NJ" October, 2009

Friday, November 9, 2012

TFAers Need To Watch Sesame Street

Wendy and Michelle and Joel and all our other little reformy friends need to take a break and watch Sesame Street, with special guest Justice Sonia Sotomayor:


Justice Sotomayor: "A career is a job that you train for and prepare for and plan on doing for a long time."

Abby Cadabby: "Well, then what kind of career can a girl like me have?"

Justice Sotomayor: "Well, you can go to school and train to be a teacher..."

Abby Cadabby: "Ahh!"


Teach For Americans, please take note of the justice's words: teaching is a career.

It is a job you train for and prepare for: I would assume Sotomayor spent more than five weeks in law school, the amount of time TFAers train for their "careers."

It is a job you plan on doing for a long time. Over 70% of TFA's recruits have left teaching after five years; that's not very long.

TFA says they want to foster respect for teachers. They could start by learning from Abby Cadabby: being a teacher isn't like pretending to be a princess. It's a career - treat it as such.

1 comment:

Marcia said...

The career some TFA participants seem to be preparing for is a well-paid job in for-profit education, or in state education policy. In this case, "teaching" is part of the training, so it is not so important if you have credentials for teaching or not.