Teach for America – “It is hard to fix a large bureaucracy when you are one yourself....”

Pros

This will be one of the toughest times of your life. People will think you are crazy for going into these schools and you have to be a little crazy to do this. If you are able to succeed in these situation the rewards are huge. To actually feel like you have had an impact on one child's life is an amazing thing. To help a student change life paths and to help them to understand how things work and empower them is amazing. You will come out of this program as a machine. You will improve on yourself as a person.

Cons

Insane amount of effort required. Teach for America treats your time like it is worthless. So many hoops to jump through and waste of time meetings and sessions.

You will be in schools where the school has no control of their students. Because of "student's rights" we cannot adequately punish students which ends up taking away their real "student right" of a quality education. The system is a broken system and you will be swimming upstream. It is frustrating to make half what the teacher down the hall makes when you bust your ass and they show movies everyday. The have been showing movies everyday for 20 years though so they make more money than a first year teacher. The unions are horrible, old, and out of date.

In TFA being white, straight, or male is treated like a disease.

Advice to Senior Management

Appreciate your corps members