HEATHER
MIGDON
Diary #13
Teaching
for America—and My Kids
I am finally ready to publicly admit it. I am a part of Teach for America. Teach for America is a movement that recruits outstanding college graduates to teach for two years in poverty-stricken urban and rural school districts across the country. For over a decade, Teach for America teachers have achieved amazing academic gains in some of the toughest schools in the nation.
So why would I be hesitant to admit my affiliation with the organization?Because disclosing that I am a part of Teach for America leads most other teachers to the accurate conclusion that I am not a certified teacher. To some teachers, especially those threatened by a young, self-motivated teacher who's not afraid to shake things up, someone who isn't certified shouldn't be let near children. Never mind that some of these teachers consider an endless supply of worksheets in the morning and word searches and crossword puzzles in the afternoon to be meaningful instruction. To these teachers, never having been taught best practices is somehow worse than having learned those practices and yet ignoring them upon entering the classroom. I should add that I am currently in a university Master's Degree program that will have me certified by next year. Additionally, based on diagnostic testing and constant reevaluation, I have no reason to believe that I am a "bad" teacher. I have been considering the value of certification since I started teaching, but a recent event made me consider it in a new light. A colleague at my school went to our building's union representative with the grievance that she should not have to teach alongside a teacher (me) who does not have certification. Of course, my hurt was mitigated by the fact that this teacher has no basis to file a grievance based on whom she has to work with. Yet the incident did cause me pause. I mulled over how she and other teachers felt about me for an entire lunch period before I realized that it just does not matter. When I applied and later agreed to matriculate into Teach for America, never did I have as my goal school-wide popularity. I came to one of the most broken school systems in the country to provide my students with an excellent education, or as close to it as I can approximate. I recently heard a public speaker relay an African proverb—when elephants fight, only the grass suffers. In all the chaos that is the District of Columbia public school system, the children are the grass that is suffering and dying. My only mission should be to help that grass grow. In the end, it is just not about that teacher or even my hurt feelings. All that matters is the 23 children that race up to my door each morning. Some come with smiles, some feign ambivalence, but they all come to school every day expecting to learn. Fulfilling that expectation should be my only concern.
