Hamilton College is among the top 20 small colleges and universities sending recently graduated seniors to the Teach for America 2009 corps. This year, Hamilton will contribute nine scholars to the program, all of whom will begin teaching in rural and urban public schools across the country this fall.
Teach for America is a national organization that strives to boost the quality of education in low-income communities. By enlisting some of America's most talented and promising college graduates, Teach for America hopes to reduce the gap between the country's best and worst public schools. The new teachers, who represent a multitude of academic majors and career goals, set out to bestow their knowledge upon children who normally would have very little chance at opportunity or success because of their socioeconomic background.
Admission to the program is extremely competitive. This year, a record of 35,000 seniors applied, and only 4,100 were accepted. The applicants came from more than 130 colleges and universities, including 11 percent of Hamilton seniors and 11 percent of all seniors at Ivy League universities. The resulting team is one of the strongest and most diverse in the program's history – one-third of the students are people of color, and 89 percent held leadership positions as undergraduates. Their average GPA is 3.6 and combined SAT score is 1333. With an enrollment of approximately 1,800 students, Hamilton is considered a small school (2,999 or fewer students) by Teach for America.
Akilah Bond '09 will begin work at the Achievement First Brownsville Charter School in Brooklyn, N.Y., after a summer of training. She says the experience is especially pertinent to her story.
"My parents have instilled in me these values because they grew up in an undereducated community," she said. "To me, education is a core value that will propel you forward."
Susan Stanton '09 says that aside from seeing her students for the first time, she is most looking forward to changing the way her pupils think about their goals and what they feel is in store for them. As last year's campus coordinator for Teach for America, Stanton is familiar with the program and feels that if a rising senior is passionate about education, application to the corps is an outstanding option.
"You have to be very organized and dedicated," she said. "But anyone can muster those qualities in themselves."
Sarah Caney '09 agrees, and feels that she will gain a new perspective from her work at a high school in New Haven, Conn.
"It's an incredibly intense experience," she said. "You're challenged to your limits every day, and you cannot take small setback as failures. But I think what is great about the program is that it values education for the sake of knowledge and not just for the career."
The Teach for America program has been in the back of Caney's mind for quite a while. She became interested in educational inequity after reading Unequal Childhoods by Annette Lareau for her American Society class as a first-year student. "I started to see that I had much more opportunity in my life, just because of my upbringing."
While Stanton is unsure of where the program coordinators will place her, she knows that it will be somewhere in the greater Boston area. Bond, on the other hand, is already aware that she will teach kindergarten, and part of her training involves coming up with lesson plans and classroom activities. Although the days stretch on for what seems like eons, the delight of working with children is her reward.
"One look at any of them and you remember why you're here," she said.
This story appeared in the July issue of eNews.
Teach for America is a national organization that strives to boost the quality of education in low-income communities. By enlisting some of America's most talented and promising college graduates, Teach for America hopes to reduce the gap between the country's best and worst public schools. The new teachers, who represent a multitude of academic majors and career goals, set out to bestow their knowledge upon children who normally would have very little chance at opportunity or success because of their socioeconomic background.
Admission to the program is extremely competitive. This year, a record of 35,000 seniors applied, and only 4,100 were accepted. The applicants came from more than 130 colleges and universities, including 11 percent of Hamilton seniors and 11 percent of all seniors at Ivy League universities. The resulting team is one of the strongest and most diverse in the program's history – one-third of the students are people of color, and 89 percent held leadership positions as undergraduates. Their average GPA is 3.6 and combined SAT score is 1333. With an enrollment of approximately 1,800 students, Hamilton is considered a small school (2,999 or fewer students) by Teach for America.
Akilah Bond '09 will begin work at the Achievement First Brownsville Charter School in Brooklyn, N.Y., after a summer of training. She says the experience is especially pertinent to her story.
"My parents have instilled in me these values because they grew up in an undereducated community," she said. "To me, education is a core value that will propel you forward."
Susan Stanton '09 says that aside from seeing her students for the first time, she is most looking forward to changing the way her pupils think about their goals and what they feel is in store for them. As last year's campus coordinator for Teach for America, Stanton is familiar with the program and feels that if a rising senior is passionate about education, application to the corps is an outstanding option.
"You have to be very organized and dedicated," she said. "But anyone can muster those qualities in themselves."
Sarah Caney '09 agrees, and feels that she will gain a new perspective from her work at a high school in New Haven, Conn.
"It's an incredibly intense experience," she said. "You're challenged to your limits every day, and you cannot take small setback as failures. But I think what is great about the program is that it values education for the sake of knowledge and not just for the career."
The Teach for America program has been in the back of Caney's mind for quite a while. She became interested in educational inequity after reading Unequal Childhoods by Annette Lareau for her American Society class as a first-year student. "I started to see that I had much more opportunity in my life, just because of my upbringing."
While Stanton is unsure of where the program coordinators will place her, she knows that it will be somewhere in the greater Boston area. Bond, on the other hand, is already aware that she will teach kindergarten, and part of her training involves coming up with lesson plans and classroom activities. Although the days stretch on for what seems like eons, the delight of working with children is her reward.
"One look at any of them and you remember why you're here," she said.
This story appeared in the July issue of eNews.
