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The Daily Tar Heel

Letter: ?TFA employees can change students’ lives

TO THE EDITOR:

The Sunday after UNC’s Homecoming, my friend Molly and I found ourselves running through the Atlanta Airport trying to catch connecting flights back to our respective Teach For America placements.

Molly had just received news that she would be teaching seventh grade English language arts starting the next day, an abrupt change from her fifth grade social studies classroom. This kind of thing is not uncommon in Title I public schools. Just weeks before, I had been tasked with adding social studies to my already packed third grade math and science curriculum.

When I finally made it to my connecting flight to Miami, I was relieved, knowing that my kids would not be split up the next day.

Since Title I schools can’t always afford or find willing substitutes, teacher absences often result in students being split up among mismatched classes, resulting in over-worked colleagues in over-capacity classrooms.

If you want a superpower, teaching is for you. America’s children need heroes to teach, love, guide and challenge them.

But education degree or not, TFA corps member or not, it’s not going to be easy working within a broken system. Every day will challenge you in some way — for that reason I agree that excellent teaching does come from experience. However, the qualities most needed to be successful — being open-minded, malleable, organized— are already fostered at UNC through rigorous courses and numerous available leadership positions.

There are many aspects of TFA in need of improvement and review, but the ability of corps members to positively affect the lives of students should not be one of them. As much as TFA teachers can complicate school districts by increasing turnover rates, within my first year, I have already seen corps members bring youthful vigor and initiative to old schools often mired in the status quo. When considering the shortcomings of TFA, it’s important that we not fault the program for problems that exist across nearly all Title I schools at a nationwide level.

Hannah Fussell

Class of ‘14

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