I've been thinking about the lack of discussion about MTC teachers integrating into their local communities, and how I think that affects our success as teachers. I think what we haven't really acknowledged is that many of us (including administrators, 1st, and 2nd years) have a somewhat hidden motive for being a part of this program.
Usually, we discuss the program as if our entire purpose for being here is to teach in Mississippi for 2 years and change the lives of x amount of children who come through our classroom; but, I think there is a strong unvoiced belief that we are/should be doing more than that. I feel like we all came down here to help make education in Mississippi better, and I feel like we all have broader goals than just what happens in our classrooms, whether we discuss them or not. You can see it with the after-school activities that people start which they obviously hope will continue after they leave and make the school a better place. You can see it with all the discussions of race-relations in Mississippi and education and different efforts people have made to address that in their schools. In community development work you call this "sustainable development". It basically means that you are affecting change for the better that will last even after you are gone.
I assume the reason we don't discuss this is because it would send the wrong message to the schools we go into. It gives the connotation that we are here to change the school or overthrow the administration. I imagine it would cause schools to think twice about inviting MTC teachers into their schools. And I don't believe that it is necessarily something we are qualified to do, on any kind of formal level, for reasons I'll discuss below; but I do think that this lack of acknowledgement is leading to MTC teachers dealing with some sustainable development issues in the wrong way.
The larger problem is that we come in as outsiders and start trying to do new/better/different things. I had a lot of training on integrating into a foreign culture when I was in the Peace Corps and the basic idea behind all of it is to listen, watch, and wait. Don't try to change a system until you understand how it works (and you'll never fully understand how it works). Until you can honestly say you see things from the "local" viewpoint, you'll never affect any change, and they won't want you to. I know it's an extreme example, but when I arrived in my small town in the Philippines, I thought a lot of things needed to be changed/fixed. After 3-6 months, I started to realize that what I thought was broken when I first arrived, wasn't even really an issue, and other problems were much more pressing. In actuality, what they teach you in community development is that you should NEVER decide what or how to change a community, you should only facilitate community members themselves making that decision and affecting change.
The finer point on this problem is what I see as MTC elitism. Maybe my first impressions are wrong, but it seems that MTC teachers spend more time hanging out with each other, than hanging out with teachers from their school. We talk a lot about being nice to the secretaries, etc., but the truth of the matter is, if all you do is bring them cookies and say hi in the hall, you're still the outsider. You may be the nice outsider, but you're an outsider. You have to actually develop friendships, and you have to want to develop these friendships, beyond being at the football games and school functions. I haven't heard a single second year or MTC alum mention a teacher/coworker/administrator with whom they had a personal friendship or for whom they had professional respect. I feel like the tone of conversations related to the staff/teachers/administrators of the schools is condescending, as if we are all better than them. We're not. We're just different, and different isn't necessarily better.
I hope this doesn't come across as bitter or critical...it's just something I've been thinking about as I relate this experience to my previous ones. And trust me, I do understand the importance of hanging out with MTC people because we share the same experiences and I do understand the importance of venting about coworkers...I just wanted to highlight that this kind of attitude may really hamper a lot of us in our efforts to start new programs/clubs/whatever and ultimately, even in our classrooms.
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4 comments:
Great post. I think you'll find that most MTCers develop good friendships with at least one or two people in their building.
We'll focus on the community much more in the fall and spring. How to teach comes first...
excellent point - good post. cant wait for dinner tomorrow!
I think this is a great post. My wife just finished her third year of teaching and still does not feel completely accepted by her peers. 1. She is on average twenty to thirty years younger than her coworkers. 2. She is white and not from the community. 3. Her views on education and what is expected out of a child are completely different from her coworkers who have been teaching for decades. We live in the next town over from where she teaches and are completely accepted. We are active members of a church, help every Saturday with Habitat for Humanity, and have made plenty of friends throughout the community, life is great. I think the schools that we are going into we are needed for a reason. There is a culture that is not successful for one reason or the other. Like any job situation that an outsider comes into it takes a long time to be truly accepted beyond superficial things. What will make it take even longer for teachers is the complete lack of time for social bonding during the school year. To sum up what I am trying to say is that when any outsider enters a culture of non success no matter the business it will take a long time for that person to be accepted if they do not fall in line with the status quo of non success.
As a teacher who deals with MTCs an TFAs, I can honestly say that the vast majority of them stick together and have little to do with those of us who will be left behind when they leave in two years.
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