The first deadline to apply for the Teach for America program has passed, and already the total applicants from the University is higher than last year, said Chloe Wiley, the Teach for America campus campaign manager.
Teach for America is a national organization that places select recent college graduates in schools in low-income rural and urban areas across the country for two years.
But the challenges awaiting those would-be teachers are daunting, according to one alumna who is in her first year of teaching.
“Before I started teaching, I kind of believed the rhetoric of a ‘tough school’ was a bigoted idea,” said Amber Mann, a 2004 LSU graduate who teaches at a Houston middle school.
“I thought all it was going to take was a teacher with a positive attitude and enthusiasm,” she said.
Mann quickly found out the problems in her classrooms would not be so easily solved. The students at her school are from Spanish-speaking families and 99 percent of them received free lunch, which means they live in poverty.
“Our training definitely prepared me more than not,” Mann said. “We spent a lot of time studying diversity issues and being in the class and dealing with bureaucratic expectations.”
But Mann said there was nothing that could prepare her for a full day in front of a class.
“You are trying to relate to 12-year-olds,” Mann said. “There are no 12-year-olds in college. You have to decide what a paper ball is worth. Do you stop class or do you let it slide?”
Mann said the network of support from the program is helpful.
“I’m in a supportive school,” she said. “And there are all these resources available to teachers. But none really say ‘This is the way.’”
Mann said October and November usually are the most emotionally difficult for first-year teachers.
“I’m trying to squeeze the most I can out of my time before Thanksgiving break,” she said. “But I think once I have time to reflect, I will feel better about it.”
Wiley, a mass communication senior who recently interviewed for the program, said she does not think anything can fully prepare her for the situations she hopes to enter.
“It’s challenging for anyone and that’s why they have to be selective,” she said. “You just have to have a willingness to change things and to believe in the cause, which is to end educational inequity in America.”
Mann said 13,500 people applied for Teach for America last year, but only 13 percent of them were accepted.
“It’s a very steep learning curve,” said Bill Thompson, the Teach for America recruitment director for LSU. “But the people we select can accelerate up that curve quickly.
Michael Tipton, a political science senior who also is a campaign manager at LSU, said he applied to teach in several large urban areas, including New York City and Washington, D.C.
Tipton said expects to see a range of problems he has never experienced, including “dire poverty.”
He said he has spoken with many people who have finished their two years of the program.
“Almost universally, everyone who completes the program says it is an amazing experience,” Tipton said.
Mann said, despite the difficulties she faces now, she knows how much she will gain from the program.
“I’m having a tough time now, but I think this perspective will affect me in whatever I choose to do with my life,” she said.