FW: [xmca] Teach for America (fwd)

[Tony Whitson <twhitson@UDel.Edu>]

Pete,

To get your post posted this time, I'm just forwarding it to the list.

Mike can forward it or whatever to fix things for the future. One way this 
can happen is if there's been some change in how your "From" address 
appears to the list server, so it doesn't recognize you, even though it 
still distributes to an address that is routed for you to receive.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 21 Feb 2010 11:24:47 -0600
From: Peter Farruggio <pfarruggio@utpa.edu>
To: twhitson@UDel.Edu, Phillip.White@ucdenver.edu, wau@Exchange.FULLERTON.EDU,
    leifstrandberg.ab@telia.com
Subject: FW: [xmca] Teach for America

Friends,

First, maybe one of you can help me figure out why my message (below) has not posted to xmca. I'm a member, although not an active poster.

Anyway, I've had lots of direct contact with TFA, and I feel that Jim Horn's Schools Matter blog has a good archive of postings and articles that cut through the corporate-backed ubiquitous pro-TFA hype

Speaking of hype, Philip, I wouldn't let my perspective be shifted too much by puff pieces like the Atlantic Monthly articles. One quick thing, we can see how little the reporter understands effective pedagogy by how oblivious he/she was to the lesson structure used by Mr Taylor (?) in his elementary Wash DC classroom for that Math lesson. A whole class IRE technique?  When does that ever work to reach all kids?  Typical teach to the middle: too low for the higher competency kids, and frustrating for the kids who need to catch up. Very un-Vygotskian, and very typical of how textbooks treat lesson structures as "background noise" when they are making other points (in this case, the point is how dedicated and charismatic the teacher is, I guess)  I caution my preservice bilingual education students about how not to get snookered by the way textbooks and training videos often portray bad teaching, like whole class lessons, as the acceptable norm. I've seen lots of real life cases where teachers perform this way, with the cooperation of their students who love them, for the benefit of principals, reporters, and various other classroom visitors. In fact, I've often been the visitor in situations where I was evaluating or doing some sort or other of preliminary research. I know too much about pedagogy and classroom management to get snookered, but I bet that the Atlantic reporter doesn't.

Anyway, I think Wayne gave an accurate overview of TFA. And yes, TFA has brought some great people into low income schools, people who EVENTUALLY developed into effective teachers, through their own efforts and with the help of more experienced colleagues (like me); but not with the help of TFA. Overall, such people are such a tiny minority that they do not overcome the harm done by TFA in the policy arena (such as bashing teachers like me, among many other things).

So, how do I get my message posted?

Cheers,

Pete Farruggio
Ass't Prof Bilingual Education
Univ of TX Pan American


-----Original Message-----
From: Peter Farruggio
Sent: Sat 2/20/2010 4:00 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: RE: [xmca] Teach for America

The Schools Matter site is an excellent source of info (see links below). My own direct experience with TFA in several low income school districts since that organization's inception confirms the harshest criticisms. A miniscule minority of its new teachers have any knowledge of how to teach, and during their two-year stint as missionaries they exude elitist contempt toward dedicated career teachers. They obediently "deliver" the behaviorist, scripted curricula demanded by the high stakes testing regime, and snitch on and deprecate the few remaining teachers who resist these mandates. TFA is  lavishly funded by the corporate interests who promote the high stakes juggernaut, and in recent years several of their graduates (after teaching for a brief term of 2-5 years) have gone on to further indoctrination in the Eli Broad administrators training program and then to top level policy positions in the high stakes apparatus of US education.

Pete Farruggio



http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2009/09/research-findings-on-teach-for-america.html

http://www.schoolsmatter.info/#uds-search-results

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