So What?

So maybe you’ve seen Waiting for Superman. Maybe you saw the Oprah about the movie. Maybe you saw The Lottery. Maybe you saw Precious. Maybe you saw The Blind Side, Stand and Deliver, Freedom Writers, etc. Even on TV, we have shows like School Pride and Teach:

Tony Danza.  Education is very in right now. There are celebrities, political leaders, and college graduates all over the country that are preaching the Achievement Gap Gospel.

So what?

Maybe after seeing one of these movies, you wanted to get involved with education. When I am confronted with a huge task like that, I often end up coming away with nothing. I see too many chances to get involved and end up back where I started, with a fading sense of duty and enough distance from the guilt trip to forget it.

Proof that TFA did in fact exist in the 90's

So let’s do not that.

I have a few humble suggestions on ways for you (and me. Trust me I need so much accountability to continue in this fight.) to get involved with “The Movement”.

Donating Time

1. Become a teacher- Pretty obvious one. In my TFA training, I ran into several, sec0nd-career corps members. Everything from a bank president to political campaigners. Programs like TFA and MTR are making a career transition like this much easier.

2. Tutor-I am willing to bet most local schools will be happy to let you tutor at their school. Programs that involve reading with a kid are huge. If you saw the dismal reading levels of high-schoolers I work with, you would know that even adding a few years of reading level can change someone’s life.

This was the first Google image for "mentoring", so, naturally, I had to use it.

3. Mentor- This is different than tutoring. This may involve some type of tutoring, but I see this more as equipping kids for life. This could involve making plans for after high school. Letting them shadow you at your job. Finding college, community college, technical schools, etc. that meet the student’s needs, dreams, and strengths. Students need positive role models on how to live their life from interacting with your family to seeing all that exists outside of their worldview.

4. Go to a school board meeting. I cannot say I’ve ever done this, but I think it is one of the most under-seen pictures of our school systems. Our kids always need more advocated.

Donating Donations

1. Give to TFA or another teaching agency(MTR and others). By sponsoring a Corps member, you get a chance to interact with them and personally see all that they are doing in their classrooms. You know you are putting money in the hands of people on the forefront of educational change. Your money will be well-spent bringing more corps members to your city to exponentially change the future of your community.

2. Donors Choose- This is great because you can find both subjects and locations that you are passionate about and give that teacher the tools that they need to run their class. Borders is running a special promotion on Dec. 4th and 5th  that gives DonorsChoose dollars for any purchases.

3. Hire a student. I am not trying to demean working in the fast food industry, but often, my students are drastically underexposed to possible jobs that exist. Talk to your local school about hiring a student from there as a summer intern or for after school. That is a radical chance to impact a kid’s future.

I fear that Education will not be trendy forever, so hopefully, we can cash in now for large scale changes. As always, these changes are made by small efforts made by normal people.

I know I missed some great ideas, so please post them in the comments. And as always, please contact me with any questions or complaints.