My Teach For America Experience

This post will explain how I became involved with Teach For America and also a little bit about what the program actually does.

How did I get involved?

Teach for America is a nonprofit organization that places recent graduates in struggling school districts across the country. I applied in August of 2009, was accepted into the program, and was placed to teach secondary math in the low-performing D.C. Public Schools system (DCPS) for the 2010-2011 school year. The application process was grueling and extensive, but my experience with students from low-income backgrounds in Kettering proved to TFA that I could potentially succeed in the classroom.

Why did I want to do this?

My experience as a site coordinator with the City of Kettering is the sole reason I want to continue the work of leading students. I was blessed with the opportunity to work with 25 young Kettering students for 3 summers. I created a relationship with every student, was able to forge a relationship each family, and provided a summer shelter where they could grow personally, and intellectually, in a safe environment. Every student lived in Kettering's Section 8 housing facility and had more personal tensions, community distractions, and broken family situations than most of us could ever fathom. Given the difficult lives of most of my students, it was incredibly gratifying work--learning about every student's life, leading the group to new experiences, providing an amazing safe haven for these kids--so I applied to Teach For America to lead students from similar backgrounds in D.C.

 

What is Teach For America?

Teach For America's mission is that "one day all students will obtain an excellent education." TFA puts its "corps members" in the most struggling, underachieving districts in the country. The school districts are bad. In D.C., only 1 out of 10 high school graduates attend college and the on-time graduation rate is below 50 percent. These are mind-blowing statistics. This link summarizes TFA's reasons why they place where they do: http://teachforamerica.org/what-we-do/the-challenge/

This was just an introductory post, so new posts will go more in depth with, what I believe, is our nation's biggest social injustice.