With Teach for America do you actually teach classes by yourself or do you do work as a teaching assistent?

Question

With Teach for America do you actually teach classes by yourself or do you do work as a teaching assistent?

Answer 1

The volunteers in Teach for America teach the classes by themselves in most cases.  

     There are good things about this program and things which are slightly problemmatic (in my opinion).  These teachers are fairly successful compared to others in the schools where they are located but you should understand that many of those working in the schools where they are located are not qualified teachers either.  Therefore, they do better than people pulled in off the street but not necessarily better than a trained teacher.  I applaud the intention but see it as a bit of a band-aid.  I know that in some instances, they are placed in situations where they really are not prepared for the specialized needs of some of their students.  Of course, an underprepared person with a good attitude and a good education is better than an unprepared person without even a good attitude or education.

      In an ideal world, we would have enough highly qualified teachers that this program would not be needed.  Of course, America actually does have enough highly qualifed teachers but many of them leave the profession in the first five years and/or refuse to work in some of the schools where Teach for America teachers are placed ...   Those are problems that this program can't fix.  

Check their website at http://www.teachforamerica.org/