To the editor:

As a Teach for America alumnus (Baltimore 2002), I would like to make a short comment on the article and editorial about Teach for America published in The Hustler on Feb. 12. While both columns in Friday's edition were accurate regarding the benefits TFA offers — and they are manifold — one must also consider the realities of teaching in the types of school situations where most TFA corps members serve. Someone who joins TFA in order to "take time off to do service" (Bidikov, quoted by Gantt in "Students teach to avoid job market") may be surprised to find out that teaching via TFA, or teaching in general, is hardly "taking time off." TFA, by design, intentionally places corps members in some of the most challenging schools in many of America's most troubled school districts.

These schools likely do not resemble the types of schools that most Vanderbilt students attended. They generally have high concentrations of students who face myriad disadvantages: poverty, lack of parental involvement, health problems, economic disadvantages, learning disabilities, drug and physical abuse, etc. While each situation in which a corps member finds himself/herself is unique, teachers in these situations often find themselves stressed out and exhausted by day's end. Furthermore, TFA corps members typically put in the same — or more — long hours as their corporate peers, they often attend graduate school in the evenings to earn their teaching credential, and they almost always must take home additional work to do in the evenings. In addition to all of this, they usually they get paid considerably less than their corporate peers. Yet, ironically, it is rewarding work.

I want to be clear that I am not criticizing anyone's intentions for applying to TFA; I urge everyone to consider TFA as an option. I taught high school in Baltimore, and I am glad I did so. However, it is necessary to be cognizant of everything that service involves. TFA is a fantastic way to build a r?©sum?© and a network, but it certainly is not "taking time off" to wait out a bad economy. Joining Teach for America and serving in America's toughest schools to "take time off" is as na?Øve nowadays as joining the military to "travel the world."

Kurt Scheib
PhD Candidate
Peabody College