A Year in the Trenches with Teach For America
Author: Donna Foote
Genre: nonfiction
Publication info: Knopf, 2008
Pages: 338
Teach For America began in 1990 with a mission to end "the nation's greatest injustice"—that is, the achievement gap in education between privileged and underprivileged children. It works by recruiting college graduates, putting them through intensive training over the summer, and then sending them to work for two years in underprivileged schools around the country.
Relentless Pursuit tells the story of four such recruits, or corps members, as they are called. Phillip Gedeon, Hrag Hamalian, Taylor Rifkin, and Rachelle Snyder recently fulfilled their two-year commitment to TFA at Locke High School in Watts, California. If you know anything about Watts (which I didn't until I read this book), you know that it's not exactly one of the top-ten best cities to live in the U.S. And Locke is definitely not the best place to go to school. But these four young college graduates took on the challenge to help the students improve, and this book shows their struggles and triumphs.
I read a review of Relentless Pursuit in the newspaper, right around the time it came out. Already I had been interested TFA and wanted to learn more about it. I thought that perhaps this book could tell me or even show me more than brochures and a Web site could. I was right.
Thanks to this book, I think I understand the TFA experience the best I could without actually doing it myself. And it scares me to death.
Those TFAers, as the author calls them, are some pretty tough cookies. First there is the rigorous selection process, which Foote depicts with intimidating detail. Then there is the summer institute, more commonly known as boot camp, at which the recruits receive their training. And then there is the teaching itself, which is probably the hardest part of all. These young teachers face challenges you wouldn't believe as they try to get their students to achieve more.
They're far from perfect and definitely don't do it without complaining (one of the chapters is titled "What the Hell Am I Doing?"), but I don't see myself doing any better than they did. Far from it, in fact. Now that I have become more familiar with TFA, I really don't know if I'm up to the challenge. But it's better to know that now than later, right?
I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the condition of our nation's education. What TFA teachers do is heroic and inspiring. If you're considering joining the ranks of TFA to make a difference in the world, I'd definitely recommend this book, but I'd also warn you that it may frighten you. Teaching is a serious business. And Teach For America requires some really gutsy people.
