For those of you who are not aware I was a TFAer way back in 2003 for all of about 4 months at which point I dropped out after some pretty horrible conditions. And before you judge just know that I really stressed and felt guilty about it and I was not alone in leaving (just in my area there were 10 of us within the first 4 months). I ended up both physically and emotionally injured from the experience and feeling very lost and disillusioned for a good six months after the whole ordeal. Adding insult to injury I later found out that my TFA roomie semi-stole my identity and messed up my credit. Thanks TFA! Needless to say I spent a good amount of time being pretty damn bitter about the whole experience. As time went on I tried to put a more positive spin on it and if anyone asked about it I would just smile and say that it was a great life lesson and it helped me to learn a lot about myself and although I didn’t have a great, or even good, experience I didn’t think the entire program was flawed. At first that was just complete crap…I just didn’t want to talk about all the badness or seem so jaded and angry. Plus who wants to admit that the decision they were so excited and somewhat smug about was a gianormously huge mistake. But then over time I thought that it was actually becoming true, you know, the whole time heals all wounds kinda thing. I really distanced myself from the whole experience and I realized that if I ever talked about my experiences it was as if I was telling someone else’s story. Sure I almost jumped through the phone and beat down someone when I received a solicitation for donations as I was a “valued alumni,” but I thought my feelings for them had softened. I thought I really had got over being ticked off and feeling that TFA took advantage of me.
Yeah guess I was wrong, because on Monday night I was watching The Colbert Report and his guest was Wendy Kopp, the founder of Teach for America. When I saw her name I was immediately like “Wendy Kopp… I hope Stephen nails her” but I decided to watch anyway because I reminded myself that I am no longer bitter and after all didn’t I really bought into her message before and wasn’t I was uber-inspired by her book (which for some strange reason I still have). So I watch the interview and within moments I was back to my angry-filled thoughts. I couldn’t help but wonder how many people she was suckering into thinking that they will change the world if they join TFA. She went on an on about these two cases where TFAers made huge strides and I was thinking “but what about all the TFA kids who don’t make those giant leaps because they realize that they don’t have the experience or resources and their students just don’t want to learn?” And then Stephen was like, “so you served as one of these teachers right?” and I just smiled cause I knew the answer. Wendy Kopp just sat there for a second and then responded “No I did not.” Yeah, how easy it is to be all idealistic when you come up with this plan as a grad student project then just sit in your corporate office and convince other people to slug it out in the trenches. After watching the interview I went and found an article from The Onion that one of my fellow TFA drop-outs sent me to some up her feelings about the whole experience. As I read it I realized I still indentify with the guy interviewed….evidently I am not as over the anger as I thought. Sure the anger isn’t as raw and harsh anymore but its still there festering away. Guess I am going to have to work on that.
