Why Teach for America Sucks

The Onion had a jokey article about starry-eyed enthnic studies majors being embittered by the Teach For America program. I see ads for it all over campus at U Mich. My sister, an LA urban school teacher in it for the long haul, shares insight on why TFA is not just bad for participants, but bad for urban schools:

Dear Johanna,

Yes, the world has problems, but I fully blamethe structure of TFA for its high turnover rate. TFA disrespects the teaching profession by giving teachers 5 weeks of training to do a job that takes years to master in order to have impact on kids. The first year is even said to be "on the job training." Rather than contributing to urban schools, TFA exacerbates the problem of teacher turnover in urban schools by:

1) insufficient training and support in schools where there is already little support

2) giving poorly trained teachers license to teach in places where there is already a high rate of uncredentialed teachers

3) catering to people who want "character-building" rather than people who want teaching to be their lifetime career; as a result, most TFA teachers will not be able to use the benefit of their experience to become better teachers and stick around to become solid figures to serve urban communities

3 part 2) Furthermore, this contributes to the turnover rate in schools where there is already a high turnover rate.

The points I make here echo an article from Stanford Professor Linda Darling-Hammond who works for Stanford's teaching program. If I find her article, I will send it to you.

Love, Martha

Racist Humor on Prairie Home Companion Makes Me Feel Like an Activist and Reach Out to Old Friends.

Hi Wendy!

Hope you're doing great over there in Laredo. I'm passing on to you this complaint I made to Praire Home Companion about their racist humor, which I explained to Aziz below. Not asking you to do much but maybe you know of a good organization who should be notified about this sort of thing, and can pass on my complaint.

I was recently moved by the movie Hotel Rwanda, about the 1994 genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda, when the Western world did nothing. There was a panel talk afterwards and the analysis was that the genocide was not the result of long-standing hatred between Hutus and Tutsis, as the Western media portrayed it at the time. On the contrary, these were racial categories practically invented and certainly reified by white colonial power (the French, in this case, but originally I think the Dutch? or I might be mixing up other countries in that last part). Anyway, in the postcolonial world the divisions remain and are played upon by groups seeking power. In this case the genocide was long-planned and seeded by hate propaganda on the radio. It's an interesting effect, how little ludricous racist comments can build here and there to seed a foundation of bad thought that can be tapped and turned into something as horrific as genocide. I'm not saying that a stupid racist joke on Prairie Home Companion will cause us to up and kill our neighbors right now, but a moment's reflection on history tells me the right thing to do is to turn the tide before it gets even close to becoming a tsunami.

Hope you're well, Wendy!
Love,
Johanna, living passionately.

p.s. Hi Elizabeth and Cecilia! I've decided to CC you guys because I know you're politically active and care about these sorts of things.


----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, February 13, 2005 2:52 PM
Subject: Fw: Xenophobe humor on February 13th show
Hi Aziz--

I'm taking a page out of your book and trying to be more responsible about writing letters to counteract wrongs. This complaint would be of interest to you; I was just listening to Prairie Home Companion and they made a joke that seemed to me blatantly racist against Muslims. I don't plan on doing much else besides the letter, but maybe you know of good watchdog organizations for this sort of thing and can pass on my complaint. I'll pass it on to Wendy, too, who last year got embroiled with some UT student group about their racist humor. Anyway, hope you're well, and Sania, too.

--Johanna



----- Original Message -----
To: phc@mpr.org
Sent: Sunday, February 13, 2005 2:44 PM
Subject: Xenophobe humor on February 13th show
Dear Prairie Home Companion,

I'm listening to your show right now and was troubled by a part in the piece about the man transporting the Renoir painting. In one part of the story he drives into a carwash "run by Muslims." This means that the carwash attendants shout to each other in a loud, strange language and can't understand the protagonist who is trying to cancel the carwash after remembering he lost is wallet and will be unable to pay.

At face value the carwash bit isn't especially interesting or funny, but my gut feeling tells me it's racist, too. Would Muslim audience members see humor in it? There are plenty of American Muslims who speak perfect English, and maybe some of them even run carwashes. I think the only way one can find the bit funny is to think of Muslims as this strange foreign species; in this way the bit follows the formula of your standard racist joke. It's frightening that racist jokes make their way into a mainstream, ostenisbly wholesome show such as Prairie Home Companion. These moments may seem small, but when we let them accumulate, we let society slip into a very dangerous place.

Sincerely,
[my name here]
Ann Arbor, Michigan