Lessons from the Corps: GW Students Active in Teach for America

News — By Kristin Drouin on November 30, 2009 at 11:55 pm

For Gillian McHale ’08, it was New Orleans or bust. The Political Communications major had had no idea what she wanted to do after her graduation from GW – until she attended a Teach for America (TFA) information session in the basement of Ivory Tower. In the midst of Pita Pit devourers, McHale was inspired.

“I was blown away,” she remembers. “The idea of having an AmeriCorps program whose purpose is to try to take young creative thinkers and put them in front of the next generation — it was extremely exciting to me.”

But McHale, a French minor at GW, had one stipulation. Two years after Hurricane Katrina, TFA was actively pushing for teachers to go to New Orleans and for McHale, it seemed like the perfect fit. She felt as if she was meant to be there; indeed, if she was destined to be part of the TFA Corps, she would be placed in her location of choice or not participate at all.

Following a strenuous application process, McHale received her assignment – to teach remedial English to freshmen at a high school located, yes, twenty-five minutes outside of New Orleans. Two weeks after graduation, McHale packed her car and drove 1,400 miles from Philadelphia to her new home.

She maintains it was the best decision she could have made.

“I thought it was the right place, right time, right feel and right opportunity,” she said.

McHale is just one of 33 alumni from the Class of 2008 who joined the Teach for America corps, according to Amanda Mills, TFA campus outreach director. Since 1990, the domestic public service program has worked to alleviate the educational achievement gap that separates low-income students from their more privileged peers.

TFA actively recruits recent college graduates who demonstrate leadership skills that suggest their ability to be effective in a classroom, according to the organization’s official website. Following their acceptance to the program, they participate in a rigorous summer-long training course – an experience McHale said her ROTC boyfriend described as “more intense than anything” he has had to do – after which Corps members begin their two-year teaching commitment in one of 35 regions around the country.

The program has proven to be an especially attractive post-graduation option for GW students. Though the official number of GW students accepted this year has not been finalized, Mills said that TFA has been the top domestic employer of GW students in recent years. The fact that TFA provides a full salary and partnerships with graduate schools makes the program “a viable option” for many students, Mills said, adding that the high level of civic engagement at GW may explain the amount of students who pursue involvement in TFA.

McHale echoed that sentiment, suggesting that the large number of GW students who become Corps members is no coincidence (though ironic, as GW does not have an education major).

“I feel strongly that [at GW] it’s that mentality that you’re not here to just get an education, you’re here to make a difference,” she said.

With the privilege of attending GW comes a responsibility to help other students get the most out of their classroom experiences. That notion drove Meg Masciola ’10, a Latin American Studies and Spanish double major who will be joining the Corps following graduation, to apply to TFA. Spurred onward by the fact that one in 10 low-income students will graduate from college, Masciola aims to lessen the achievement gap one student at a time – a goal for which she believes GW has prepared her. GW students, she said, know how to take on and balance challenges.

“They say [Teach for America] is the hardest two years of your life,” she said. “I have no doubt that students coming from GW will be prepared for that.”

Adjustment and Adaptation

No amount of preparation, however, can fully prepare a new teacher for all facets of the TFA experience, according to McHale. The summer training did help her to become accustomed to the idea that “an 18-hour day is not atypical.” The culture shock of moving to Louisiana was a far greater obstacle.

“I had to adapt to a lot of things all at once,” McHale said.

Making the geographical shift worries Masciola. A native of Boxborough, Massachusetts, she is excited to move somewhere new after graduation but nervous about acclimating to the new culture she will be exposed to during her summer training in Houston and subsequent classroom placement in Rio Grande Valley, Texas. Yet given the option to stay in D.C., as some of her friends are doing post-graduation, Masciola would still choose to make the move to a new place that may, at first, feel foreign because of the instantaneous impact TFA will help her to make.

“Teaching is one of the most personal ways you can help someone,” she said. “It’s immediate, effective change.”

Through the teaching process, McHale has noticed changes in herself as well. Having been raised in a family in which “knowledge of issues was pushed on me at a very early age,” she admitted to coming to her New Orleans classroom with certain expectations about what her students did – and did not – know. Those notions were quickly shattered, as she realized her students had not received subject background or context that she had taken for granted.

“What is prerequisite knowledge has been completely redefined for me,” she said.

The ability to adjust to her student’s needs has produced measurable results. Before the implementation of the remedial reading program, McHale said that 12 percent of the ninth graders in her school failed the Louisiana state-wide assessment tests. Weakened English skills affect students’ understanding in other subjects.

“The achievement gap is a literacy gap. If you can bring up the reading levels, you can have a profound impact,” McHale said. “How many other things are they missing because they don’t understand what they’re reading?”

Since the new reading program began the year of McHale’s arrival, the number of freshmen failing the state test has dropped to 4 percent. Working to increase their reading levels, McHale feels she is having the greatest impact on her students’ daily lives.

“I feel like the doors of opportunities available to them have completely shifted,” she said.

Making changes?

Not all TFA classrooms are able to boast the same statistics for success that McHale can. Though TFA claims to have reached approximately 3 million students since it began, the program still has many critics. They suggest that training and placing Corps members, many of whom will choose not to enter the teaching profession long-term, in a classroom for only two years may do more harm than good.

Quoted in a 2008 USA Today article, Rob Weil, Deputy Director of Educational Issues at the American Federation of Teachers, explained his concerns about the TFA programmatic design.

“Recruitment is only half the battle. The other side of that battle is retention,” he said. “I’m going to say that the just having people come and go in the profession is not going to make a quality education for students.”

It is something that McHale thinks about. She admits to being conflicted about TFA, noting that it would be optimal to have teachers who will commit to and stay permanently within a community. In recent student reviews of teachers at her school, one of her students wondered if McHale would be returning next year, as her program commitment will have ended.

“You recognize you’re going to be a blip on the kids’ radar screens,” she said. “But you try your best to be a good one.”

It’s hard, however, to wonder if she is hurting more than helping her students. Yet McHale also noted that without TFA Corps members, many more teaching vacancies would exist, perhaps resulting in structural adjustments (increase in class sizes, for instance) that would prove to be even more detrimental.

Because of the competitive nature of Teach for America’s multi-step application process, those classrooms that are led by Corps members are guaranteed to be run by a teacher who is enthusiastic about education, eager to enact change, and truly wants to be there – the optimal choice, McHale said, over a teacher who may simply serve as a mediocre placeholder.

“Someone has to fill those spots,” she said. “Why not have it be someone who’s dynamic, who’s creative, who’s maybe a little bit crazy but willing to do whatever it takes to shake things up a little bit?”

Some of Masciola’s friends have questioned her involvement in the program. Yet she is eager to empower the small group of students she will encounter, noting that Corps members are often inspired, in turn, by their experiences with TFA. Though many will not choose to be teachers, they can apply their experiences in the classroom to a wide range of other professions.

That is part of the beauty of the program, explains McHale, adding that some critics wonder if TFA members are simply trying to pad their resumés before moving on to higher-profile positions. She sees no harm in that.

“Don’t we want members of Congress who have taught in the public school system? Don’t we want lawyers who have taught in the public school system?” she said.

A part of her will always be tied to her New Orleans school. Two years ago, she made a decision that led her to a “priceless” experience with TFA, albeit not free of challenges or doubt. McHale needs no numbers or statistics to know that she’s made a small difference.

“I need kids who tell me ‘I’m going to graduate from high school,’” she said.

She loves when former students return to her classroom to show her their report cards. One girl recently made a straight B-average for the first time, and McHale is proud.

“They’re still way, way behind, but there’s that empowerment,” she said. “And if you can impart some sort of empowerment or confidence for kids, they’ll run with it and they’ll fill in the rest of the gaps.”

Tags: Teach for America