Levi B. Cavener is a special education teacher in Idaho. He recently wrote an article arguing that Teach for America recruits with five weeks of training should not be assigned to special education students. A spokesperson for TFA responded that it was okay because they would be getting the training while they taught.
Levi says that is like teaching with training wheels.
He writes:
It’s not ok for a doctor to tell you that s/he’s qualified to do the surgery because s/he will get training later. Nobody wants to be the one lying on a table with a doctor who has only recently held a scalpel for the first time.
It’s not ok for a lawyer to represent you because he has great ambition to attend school and pass the BAR exam down the road. Nobody wants to stand in front of a judge with an attorney whose only experience in the courtroom is from watching episodes of Law & Order.
It’s certainly not ok for an individual to be placed at the head of a classroom full of our most vulnerable students because TFA training wheels are attached at the waist. Students and parents have a right to expect a highly qualified professional leading this classroom starting on the very first day of school, and a TFA employee does not fulfill this basic expectation.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
What sort of times do we live in when someone—I assume well meaning even if inexperienced and obviously in way over her head—can earnestly spout such nonsense in public with a straight face?
Nonsense that will inflict life-long damage on many many people.
“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
😎
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TFA recruits presumably do have good intentions, but the organization itself has anything but, since it seeks to turn teaching into temporary, at-will employment and be a training academy for so-called reform leadership cadre that will expand the hostile takeover of public education.
This is a deeply insidious, dishonest institution, impervious to criticism on anything but the most superficial PR level, that is a key part of the corporate/advocacy/malanthropic/ academic complex of so-called reform.
TFA cannot be reformed – the entire premise upon which it is based is invalid, even if it was not a weapon against public schools and career teachers- and should have a stake driven through its heart by a concerted effort to make it radioactive on the campuses. Just as student idealism has been harnessed to improve working conditions in the factories making college wear, students should be approached to help drive this vampire institution out of the temple of learning.
After all, teaching is one of the last middle class jobs around, and today’s students would be helping themselves and their future career prospects if this organization were euthanized.
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“TFA recruits presumably do have good intentions”
Yes, one of the most recent “interns” we were subject to had very good intentions…he intended to get into grad school at Harvard. (Policy) and everything he did while here was moving him toward that intention.
He was successful.
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Ang,
While I recognize that many TFA recruits enter with explicitly opportunistic goals that have nothing to do with education – and while I’ve found many of the TFAers I’ve encountered to be insufferably arrogant – we should assume the good intentions of the young people who join, if only to try and split them off from the organization.
As long as this infernal institution is able to successfully market itself on campuses as being associated with civil rights and social justice, it will continue to erode public education and the working conditions of teachers. We must work to get college students to repudiate it as widely as possibly, so that it’s seen as the fifth columnist organization it truly is.
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I agree with you, Michael.
But lord, some of them are quite a trip, aren’t they.
And others, because of lack of training, experience and/or any natural talent for teaching cause quite a few problems for the rest of us to clean up.
I’m just tired, I suppose.
Sigh
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Believe me, I’m tired too, but still retain a dram of optimism that we can stop this forced march before it’s too late.
Also, anger at all the lies and venality can be an energizer…
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How about me as CHIEF of SURGERY for a hospital? I’ve been in the ER room for SURGERY. LOLI!
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That’s great, Yvonne. What a can-do, no excuses spirit you have! Just stop by and pick up your scripts from the Medical Design Collaborative (MDC) and follow the instructions in them. How about pediatric cardiology? You like little kids, right? But make sure that you follow the standards. David Coleman and Sue Pimentel have leafed through the writings of Galen and the 1858 edition of Gray’s Anatomy and have put together some rigorous new medical standards for you to follow.
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So since my kids aren’t special education students they can have the TFA temps in their classes? Everyone has to start somewhere and I might argue, as was my experience, that every teacher should teach special education classes before you teach anything else to develop your sense of compassion and management skills. I bet the TAG and STEM parents don’t the TFA temps either so the non-vocal comprehensive kids should have them?
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This really sickens me, what the heck do they not understand. TFA’s are not qualified!!!
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Would love to see the faces of the CEO’s of Teacher for America if they were seated on a commercial airliner and received an announcement from the flight deck that the pilots were flying with 5 weeks of training, but were getting excellent coaching/mentoring form the control tower.
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lol
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ROFLOL!!
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When airplanes are “built in mid-air,” they crash in the Andes and the surviving passengers eat each other.
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LOL
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As a former special education teacher, I find it repulsive for TFA to think that they can just train someone for five weeks and place them with special needs children. I had a BS in elementary education and a MS in special education. I can’t imagine that someone with only five weeks of training could be qualified and effective with special children.
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I had a 4-year degree in elem ed and two years experience teaching, then switched to SPED. I still wasn’t ready. Thankfully, I had a co-teacher with experience to help me. 5 weeks is a joke, for any teaching position for any prek-12 student.
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What is the origin of the myth that anyone can teach?
How do we address the paradox that some perceive teaching to require no preparation while at the same time there are numerous demands to increase the rigor of teacher preparation programs?
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“Those who can, do; those who cannot, teach.”
From the original quotation by George Bernard Shaw, “He who can, does; he who cannot, teaches,” this gender-neutral version of our society’s attitude toward teaching has persisted over time.
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Those who can, teach. Those who can’t form foundations and think tanks to tell teachers how to do their jobs.
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My father said that to me when I told him of my plans to become a teacher!
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Mr Shaw..(if you are listening from the realms of Glory) .no one Teaches these days..They Test..so your quote is antiquated,,,out of date..and has zero merit….
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“Those who can, do; those who cannot, teach.”
I suggest we embrace it.
I have been teaching for 24 years because I am one of those who cannot.
Among other reasons, I teach because I cannot stand a society where teaching is devalued and separated from doing; a society where teaching and learning are considered to take place in the classroom, and doing, outside it; where doing is considered better even when it is not informed by reflection or wisdom.
How about anyone else…
What cannot you stand?
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It is interesting that it was a line in Shaw’s Play “Man and Superman” and that it was written in 1903, though I’m not sure why it is significant nor why it seems to resonate with so many people.
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Ang, I teach because I cannot stand the Revelation to Achieve, the central dogmas of which are
Learning is mastery of the bullet list.
Teaching is punishment and reward (extrinsic motivation).
Thinking is what David Coleman has done for you.
Arbeit macht frei.
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In an episode of the Simpsons, Lisa’s ballet teacher said, “Those who can do teach. How can you teach if you can’t do?”
There is more wisdom in our sarcastic TV programs than our society in general.
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What other profession allows such a short cut to practice? I checked medicine, law, and nursing and could not find any short term training sessions to place me on the fast track to practice. In fact, anyone practicing in these other fields without proper training and without passing boards would be guilty of malpractice. Question is why do professional educators allow such a thing? Can this educational malpractice be stopped?
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There is a debate in my new profession, nursing, about one-year bachelor degree programs in nursing for those who have a BA in another degree (these are called Accelerated Bachelors In Nursing, or ABSN degrees). I am halfway through one of these programs. All the classes are the same and all the clinical hours are the same as any other RN program. But the concern is that we’re learning too fast and can’t absorb the material. Some nurse managers have said they refuse to hire ABSN’s because they don’t think we’ll be prepared. Their heads might explode if I suggested I should have a 5 week clinical since I already have a degree (in a totally unrelated subject: education), and should be allowed to practice nursing before passing the state boards because, well… just because!
The only similar thing I have found is training for a job while on the job, but only if you already have your RN (for example, you don’t need certification in the Operating Room to get an OR job, you can learn on the job and complete your OR requirements at the same time).
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” Question is why do professional educators allow such a thing?”
I would suggest a slight variation:
Why do professional educators allow such a thing to happen to them?
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