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Committing to the Classroom

Dear Fellow Alumni,

Six years ago, when I left my job as a writer at People and joined the New York City corps, a few of my friends were incredulous. "How will we get our news?" they joked. But the truth was they couldn’t fathom the choice I was making. I traded my window office in the Time-Life Building for a cramped classroom in the South Bronx with 32 desks and 38 students. My salary was cut by half even as my work hours doubled, and I made a conscious decision not to contribute to my IRA so that I could take a much-needed vacation. "I think it’s great what you’re doing," one friend told me. "I couldn’t have done it."

The statement was remarkable only for the number of times I heard it. For most people I knew, teaching was never even an option, whether because of the difficult circumstances or low pay. They viewed my career switch as a sacrifice, an act of charity. And they supported me in kind, with encouraging words and occasional donations for classroom supplies. I hadn’t gone into the classroom for the money, of course, but why, I wondered, should teaching be a compromise?

Then there was the teacher across the hall. Mr. Abrams was 26 and had been in the classroom for just two years. Once during a prep, I went over to borrow his stapler. His students were quiet and writing. I looked at the transparency glowing on the projector screen. It was a blank map of Africa with a question at the top: "Write down all the countries you know." He was flipping through a sneaker catalog.

Incompetence like Mr. Abrams’ wasn’t the norm in our school, but there was a wide spectrum of performance that was not being effectively recognized or addressed. Another seventh grade teacher, Mr. Leonard, had created an alternative academic universe for the students lucky enough to be in his homeroom. His students loved learning, and they loved him. Mr. Leonard’s kids were the ones who submitted poems to the literary magazine in perfect iambic pentameter, picked up litter as they walked through the halls, and resoundingly crushed every standardized exam. Mr. Leonard was the only teacher in the school who looped with his students. He also kept to himself, rarely socializing with other staff or faculty. When I first started teaching, I asked to observe his class. He offered a few words of advice. "Make your classroom, the world you create for these kids, excellent," he said. "Make it cool to learn. If it’s clear you love teaching them, they’ll follow you anywhere." And, he added, "Keep your door closed." I knew what he meant. It doesn’t take long for a culture of complacency to poison a school.

My years in the corps convinced me that raising the bar on teacher quality isn’t just about changing the way we compensate and reward excellent teachers. Certainly money is important-we have to make teaching a real option for everyone, not only those who are willing to teach despite the circumstances. But I’ve also come to believe that equally critical is developing a credible and rigorous means of evaluating performance, providing top-notch support to those who need it, and removing chronically ineffective teachers. Only with all of these pieces in place do we have a chance at giving our students the kinds of teachers they deserve.

Warm regards,

Ting Yu

N.Y.C. '03

Editor in Chief