Gary Rubinstein’s TFA Blog

Since my own first year in 1991, I’ve been very interested in the quality of teacher training at the institute. Each year, I’ve done my own sort of evaluation of what they’re teaching and how well they’re doing it. It used to be the feedback forms from my workshop. Since this year, for the first time, I was effectively prohibited from doing my workshop (I did it, but because of poor scheduling and communication, only one person came, and that was someone I personally invited), the only thing I have to go by is what the new CMs are putting on their blogs.

Based on some of the mistakes that I see the new CMs make, I think about how it reflects on TFA’s training. Is it that TFA encouraged them to make these mistakes? Or did they try to warn them about these mistakes, but did a poor job of getting that message through? Either way, it’s something TFA should think about.

An example of this is from an enthusiastic new science teacher. Here’s a quote from a longer blog entry called First Friday This is what he did on his fourth day of teaching high school chemistry:

Today I taught about the theory of Malleable Intelligence (for TFAers, we get an article in our TAL curriculum book that I just photocopied and turned into a lesson plan. Hooray instant lesson plan!), and I started out with a controversial quote from DNA discoverer James Watson, who said something about blacks having inferior intelligence to that of whites. It was meant to be a conversation starter, and with my other classes it worked out well. With this one class, I’ve got six students who love to speak out, and argue, and protest that I’m being unfair (stop whiiiiining), and another six who I haven’t heard a peep from. They worry me. I feel like I don’t have the time or energy to help the silent half of my room–who I know are having trouble–because I’m so busy keeping the other half in check. In short, differentiation is hard. It’s harder when you’re not very good at classroom management.

Somehow this guy graduated from the TFA institute thinking that this was a good idea for a new teacher who doesn’t really know his kids yet. New teachers should not take such risks, especially during the first week. The kids need to feel secure that their teacher is teaching the ‘regular’ curriculum. Kids should learn a simple skill that the teacher can easily measure whether or not they mastered it so they can do well on the first quiz or test.

Instead, this guy thinks a good motivation is to show them a racist quote. In theory, this would motivate kids to prove James Watson wrong. It would wake them up and get them into the lesson. In reality, he just hasn’t earned the right to do a lesson like that. It doesn’t seem to fit into the curriculum and it can make the students angry in a bad way. It’s just a terrible risky idea. (The article came from the TFA handbook, I’m sure not as something that they think you should teach your class, but something to spark a discussion about low expectations for minorities during teacher training — it’s definitely not intended to be an ‘instant lesson plan.’)

My question is, what was it about his training in TFA that enabled him to think that this was a good thing to do? Did they reccommend it? Or did he misunderstand something? Probably the later. Either way, though, it shows that TFA is either teaching risky practices, improperly teaching good practices, or just not assessing properly if the new teachers have learned the good practices.

Is it better to succed at trying to be good or fail at trying to be great?

This is a fundamental question that’s at the heart at my differences with TFA with regard to the training of the CMs.

Looking over the curriculum and talking with CMs, I realize that TFA is holding up models of ‘great’ teachers for the CMs to emulate. Great teachers get students ‘invested’ as a way to motivate them. Great teachers accomplish a year and a half of material in one year (That’s twice as much as the three fourths of a year of material that their other teachers did.) Great teachers have creative innovative instruction all the time.

The problem with trying to be great is that it is risky. If the risk pays off, that’s great. But if it doesn’t, you might be in serious trouble.

It’s like if you were learning to juggle for a big performance. Either you can go in with a plan to be ‘good’ juggling three bowling pins and you can focus on that for five weeks and get reasonably good at it. Or, knowing that it’s much better to juggle five flaming torches, you can spend a lot of your energy focusing on that. When it’s time for the big performance, you decide to go with the torches because they are ‘better.’ But they’re also more risky.

Risk analysis says you have to consider three things: 1) What will you gain if you succeed? 2) What will you lose if you fail? 3) What is the likelihood of success?

With the torches, you will get a standing ovation if you succeed and you will burn down the room if you fail. Whether to take the risk or not depends on the third thing. If you’re experienced, the likelihood of success is great. If you’re a beginner, unfortunately, your likelihiood of success is low. So the beginner shouldn’t take this risk. There’s too much to lose. The new juggler would have been better off doing a risk-free three bowling pin performance.

As applied to teaching, I think that TFA sends CMs in with a plan to be great. The CMs don’t realize that if they fail to ‘invest’ and if they confuse their kids by going too fast while trying to teach double the amount of an ‘average’ teacher or by trying to make too many complicated activities, that they can ‘burn the room down.’ They would have been better off playing it ’safe.’

I think if, as a new teacher, you go in with a plan to take few risks and be a solid ‘good’ teacher, you will do a great service to your kids. If you try to do more that you’re capable of, there’s a chance you’ll be great (and then you can be on TFA institute staff next year), but there’s also a chance that you’ll fall on your face. (Your class runs all over you. See my 9 minute workshop video #4 to see what that’s like)

Some of the suggestions you’re getting this summer should be stored away in your mind for your ‘great’ second year.

Now, if you’re a first year CM, you might be thinking, “I don’t like what you’re saying. I didn’t defer law school for two years to be just a ‘good’ teacher. I’m going to take the risk and I’ll either be ‘great’ or die trying.”

I’m OK with that. Because at least now you know that it’s a risk you’re taking. The way TFA presents it, you would think that it would be risky to NOT do it that way.

A critique of the TFA ‘Classroom Managment & Culture’ booklet.

At the institute they use as a text a series of books that comprise the institute curriculum. Who wrote these books, I’m really not sure. But looking over the 162 page ‘Classroom Management & Culture’ booklet, I get a lot of information about what sorts of things TFA is currently stressing.

I have a copy of the 2006 booklet. It’s possible that this is very different from the 2008 booklet, but I doubt it. (TFA is very slow to change. They have a tendency to ignore criticism.)

I’ll go through the first few pages and make some comments.

Page 1: It’s misleading to lump classroom management and culture as one thing. It implies that you should first establish your classroom culture and then you can focus on management. I’d say it’s the other way around. Plenty of good teachers have management without having established the classroom culture. They then have this CM reflection about how her kids were upset because they were going on a field trip and were not going to learn as much that day. This is very unrealistic. Kids, even really motivated ones, like to go on field trips where they can learn in the ‘non-traditional’ way. Why should this be the first thing CMs read about when they’re trying to tackle the vital topic of classroom management?

Pages 16-17: Here they have a chart with examples of ‘rules to follow’ and ‘rules to avoid.’ The three guidelines they layout are “1) Phrase your rules in the form of a positive statement, 2) State your rules clearly, and 3) Minimize your list of rules (most teachers have 3-5 rules).”

I like guidelines 2 and 3, but I don’t agree with guideline 1. I think it contradicts guideline 2. It’s OK to phrase some rules in the negative. It makes it clear. Look at the examples they have as ‘good’ rules like “Class time is for class activities” and the ‘bad’ rules like “No gum, food, or drink in class. Bring your homework, book, notebook, and pen to class everyday. Be on time. No profanity. No leaving the room without permission.” I think those ‘bad’ rules are pretty clear. There’s only 5 of them also.

Page 19: Here’s a pretty dangerous ‘consequence list’ that they advise.
“1. Warning 2. Short detention after class or school 3. Written plan for
improvement 4. Guardian contact 5. Severe clause: Sent to principal” Any consequence ‘ladder’ that begins with ‘warning’ is going to be a disaster, especially if you post that on your wall or tell them that’s the first consequence. It’s like giving everyone a free pass. Read my blog entry on why you shouldn’t post consequences and watch my video #3 if you want to see how these consequences can backfire.

Page 24: “Some teachers establish their rules and consequences before students arrive and without student input, while others develop them collaboratively with students. Student participation in setting the expectations can increase their investment in them. However, since new teachers must focus on establishing their authority in the classroom, new teachers often find it most effective to develop the rules and consequences themselves in order to communicate to their students firm guidelines for behavior from the beginning.” They then go on with some examples of teachers who have successfully used the ’students help make the rules’ activity. Then they say “Irrespective of the approach you choose …” as if you might decide you should do it in your first year.

They should be more decisive and say that new teachers should NEVER let the students help make the rules. They use weak language like ‘new teachers often find it most effective to’ rather than telling it like it is and saying ‘new teachers should always.’ Letting the kids brainstorm the rules is the kind of thing that works for someone after their first year. I know a lot of good elementary teachers who make that work. But it’s not good for a first year and it should only be mentioned in a book like this as something that should wait until the second year.

I know the argument “When the students help make the rules they’ll be more likely to follow them. If they don’t follow them, all you’ll have to do is say ‘You’re breaking the rules that you created!’.”

If your classroom management depends on the power of irony, you’re in a lot of trouble.

I’m out of steam on this. The booklet isn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. I’m actually happy about that.

The ‘evolution’ of the TFA institute.

You’d expect the 2008 institute, eighteen years after the first institute at USC, to be very different and superior to its 1990 ancestor. As someone who was around since the second institute, and who had the opportunity to participate in fifteen consecutive institutes from 1991 until 2005, I’m in a good position to discuss how the institute model got the way it is, and whether or not it is the result of years of subtle refinement.

Some questions I’ll try to trace the answers to:
Why is the institute only five weeks long?
How did they come up with the collaborative model?
Who staffed the institute before there were any alumni?

Here’s the story: The 1991 institute at USC was six weeks long. So was the 1992 one at CSUN Northridge and the 1993 one at UCLA. Working at these institutes were respected professionals from around the country. My ‘CMA’ was a teacher with twenty years experience. My friend had a ‘CMA’ who had been a principal for ten years. There were some really respected people in education who were the ‘deans.’ One of them, Paul Nash, was about 75 years old and wrote the article about education in the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Since these institutes happened in LA, where they have ‘year round’ schools, each CM was assigned to a real school and a cooperating teacher. Depending on the teacher, some CMs, like me, got to teach by myself for the entire seven weeks. I taught three classes of 34 every day. Unfortunately, some CMs only got to watch their cooperating teacher.

Then TFA almost went bankrupt. Maybe it was their high institute payroll. They did a lot of mismanaging of money. For example they flew the entire 1991 corps out to the 1993 institute to ‘graduate.’ I believe that they owed a lot of money to some of these California schools so they had to create a very ‘no-frills’ institute in Houston.

So in 1994 they had to throw together a new, cheaper, model. The first thing they did was cut the institute to five weeks. Then, since Houston did not have year round schools, they created a summer school system. Since there weren’t enough kids to give each CM his or her own class, they made these collaborative groups of four. Some of these classes had less than twenty students in them. Since there were now alumni, they got rid of all the ‘seasoned’ experts and had all the trainers be alumni.

Years passed and people forgot that there was ever a time with a longer institute, with very seasoned trainers, with each CM getting to teach full classes. It just seemed like the way it’s always been – but now you know it wasn’t always that way.

Then, in 2001 they started ‘franchising.’ So there was a New York institute based on the Houston model, and now there are five institutes. Each is based on the Houston model which was based on operating with very rigid constraints with very little money.

But TFA isn’t broke anymore and it’s time to revisit what the major components of the institute are. Why not add another week to the institute? Then instead of having 17 days of student teaching, you’d have 22. That’s about 30% more student teaching. Also, why does practically everyone have to be an alum? Surely there are some experts out there who did not go through TFA that are very worthy of respect. Finally, why not make it a big priority to find a way to give each CM an opportunity to stand in front of a group of 34 students?

America is trusting TFA to produce 3,700 new teachers who will be able to teach 200,000 students this year. TFA owes it to those students to do everything possible to prepare CMs for this challenge.

OK. So now you might be thinking, “Aren’t you the guy who is known for having such a bad first year that you nearly quit / got fired / had a nervous breakdown? How can you say that training was better back then?” Well, the training still had a lot of problems. Maybe having all ‘experts’ isn’t good either since they can’t remember how hard the first year can be. I think that had I gotten to meet some actual alumni they might have been able to scare me a little into not being so overconfident. I’m not saying the old model was perfect. But after 18 years, I think the current model still needs a lot of improvement.

The problem with ‘investing.’

This is a buzzword I’ve been hearing a lot from new TFA CMs. ‘Investing,’ they’ve learned, is a very important thing to establish in your class right away. If the students are invested, they will be motivated to learn. If they’re motivated to learn, they will learn, which will make them even more invested. Sounds nice.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way with a real class.

You see, investing is something that you should not force on your class. You don’t come in on the first day saying ‘This class is a team, and if one of us failed, our team failed. I’m going to help everyone learn, and we’re going to help each other out, and then we can all progress together.’

In an ideal world, or in the movies, that might work. But to a group of kids who have heard speeches like that before, they are just empty words and promises.

You can get ‘investing’ and you can get motivation and you can get learning. But they don’t happen in that order.

Start with the learning. Don’t talk about how great you are as a teacher and how much you believe in them on the first day. Teach them something. Make it a clear lesson with an activity that makes sense. If everyone completes the activity and then you assess them and the students did well and they believe that they’ve learned, then suddenly they feel some confidence. They feel confidence in themselves and confidence in you, their teacher. After enough successes like this, the students naturally develop a sense of ‘investing.’

Let the ‘investing’ develop naturally when the students believe you can lead them, not because you said you can, but because you proved you can with some good teaching.

Note:
I’m a TFA old timer, Houston 1991. I’ve been following the evolution of the TFA institute and training philosophy for 17 years. Throughout the years, I’ve presented workshops at the different institutes and have gauged the progress of the training model by the feedback I’ve received. My ideas eventually became a book ‘Reluctant Disciplinarian’, which may or may not be circulating around the institutes. You won’t find it on any reading list, required, recommended, or otherwise. (More on that in another entry.)

It’s been a long time since I’ve worked at an institute (1996), but I have a sense about what goes on there from the comments CMs make when they attend my workshops at the post-institute training for the NY region. Let me know if I’m off-base about what I think is going on there.