Pass the Chalk: The TFA Blog

Taiyyaba Qureshi attended a roundtable discussion with other members of the eastern North Carolina community during a stop on Matt and Elisa’s Listening Tour. On the anniversary of the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling, she and her colleague, Mark Dorosin, explain how the specter of segregation is resurfacing in schools.

Although racial segregation in public schools was held unconstitutional in 1954 by Brown v. Board of Education, massive resistance by segregationist state and local governments prevented meaningful implementation of this landmark ruling for over a decade. It wasn’t until the late 1960s, and in response to community activism, litigation, and intervention by the federal government, that the doors of educational opportunity were finally forced open to create equal access for children of color.  

Photo by Thomas J. O'Halloran via Wikimedia Commons

Alisha Walker (Alabama ‘11) pays tribute to her veteran teacher mother in recognition of Mother’s Day. Alicia recently presented a Tedx Talk at Auburn University.

I wish I could say that I have always wanted to be an educator, but that is not entirely true. When I was younger, people would make comments about how I would be a teacher--just like my mother --when I grew up. I, however, saw myself working somewhere in corporate America. Thankfully, senior year of undergrad I was challenged to find my passion and realized that being an educator was my heart’s desire. Although I had made various attempts to “run away” from my calling, my mother’s genuine joy and love for her career is what helped to inspire me to become an educator.

My mother is not and has not always been the “favorite” teacher during the school year. She sets extremely high expectations for her students and is not a slacker when it comes to issuing consequences for misconduct. Her students refer to this as “tough love.” She is often, however, the teacher that students remember long after their time in her classroom. The teacher that kids know truly has/had their best interest at heart despite the day-to-day hustle and bustle of the school year.

The author and her mother. Photo courtesy of Alisha Walker.

Last night 10 Teach For America teachers were invited to The Late Show with David Letterman for his Top Ten. Last night’s topic? The Top 10 Reasons I Decided to Become a Teacher.

10. I hope to live up to the teachers who inspired me. . .like Ms. What’s Her Name — Zach Smith (Phoenix '13)

This post marks National Teacher Appreciation Week.

A 22-year teaching veteran (and my former second-grade teacher), Mrs. Alice Siegel Budd is a Facebook friend to almost all of her students from the 1981 class of second graders at P.S. 273  in Brooklyn, New York.  

She regularly “talks” to us, “comments” on our statuses and still wishes us Happy Birthday! She congratulates us on a job well done and admires our families. At one point, she even tried to get us to call her by her first name, Alice. We simply refused her request, all of us—she will always be Mrs. Siegel to us.

My fondest memory of Mrs. Siegel was her standing at the board writing. She has the most amazing penmanship I had ever seen and we all wanted to write just like her. She finally promised us that if we learned all of our required material that she would teach us cursive. I WAS SO EXCITED! I think this was the day I became a lifelong learner.

I was honored to spend an afternoon talking with Mrs. Siegel to learn more about the life path that brought her to teaching.

Photo courtesy of Tracy Dunbar.