The Real World of Teach for America: The Series

January 19th, 2010

The Real World of Teach for America
The Series

Produced by: John Tulenko, David Wald, Valerie Visconti, Tania McKeown & Donald Devet

What is it actually like for young Teach for America corps members, thrust into a classroom after eight weeks of training? What motivates them to teach, and what will keep them in schools after their two-year commitment ends? And is, as a recent study asks, Teach for America accomplishing its goal of creating lifetime civil servants?

This series explores those questions.

Over the course of two years, Learning Matters producers followed 7 Teach for America recruits as they fulfilled their assignments in New Orleans.
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These are their stories.

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Watch all 7 profiles and weigh in with your ideas and thoughts. Join the discussion happening here, on Facebook and Twitter.

Want to own the series? Great for classroom use or to watch for group discussion. Buy online now!

Tags: alternative certification, bayoji akingbola, colleston morgan, daniel bedell, jeylan erman, kady amundson, lindsay ordower, teach for america, TFA, wendy kopp, zitsi mirakhur

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(2 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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6 comments

January 13, 2010 at 4:02 pm
Tina says:

I tried to watch your videos on my iPhone but as they require flash which is blocked by apple, sadly it doesn’t work. Is there any chance you can make the videos available in another format? Thanks a lot for all your great work in the area of education.

January 15, 2010 at 4:36 pm
Anique says:

@Tina and anyone else having trouble viewing Flash videos, the full TFA series will be available on YouTube. The first two are up now: http://bit.ly/63hasH.

January 27, 2010 at 1:19 pm
LaFave says:

Do you have any thoughts of covering any of the TFA teachers at lower grade levels in the future?

January 30, 2010 at 4:57 pm
Wes says:

These were really insightful as a newly accepted CM who will be headed into the classroom this year. I had so much to say for each of them I had to do a whole blog post about the series you can view here: http://www.tfaadventure.com/
Thanks so much for this inside look on being a CM Learning Matters!

March 17, 2010 at 3:29 pm
Jonathan says:

wow, i’m glad to have found these through my friend, Diana. i am also joining the 2010 TFA Corps, and this gives me a realistic view of how it will be. but as LaFave mentioned, it would be helpful to have elementary school videos as well.

July 22, 2010 at 4:18 am
Austin says:

Haha, I’m in the same boat as many of the previous commenters. I am really interested in applying to TFA and these videos have been incredibly helpful. I still feel that TFA is the right thing for me after I graduate from college, but now I’m much more conscious of the difficulties that lie ahead. Just like a hurdler, once you know where and how high the hurdles are, the easier they are to jump over.

Thanks for posting the videos!

Learning Matters