The final essay for Building Just Institutions.
Choose some social/institutional context, setting, or problem first and use that particular social context as a way to explore the ideas and themes of the course. This is a good way to think about this paper if you are particularly interested in some social/institutional setting or problem. For example, if you are interested in admissions policies and processes at elite colleges, then you can use that setting to consider issues related to fairness, competing understandings of justice, and so on. Or if you are interested in development issues, you might want to look at a particular organization or particular national setting to explore and illuminate issues of how people struggle between moral universalism and moral relativism. The key with approaching this paper in this way is to choose a problem or setting with an appropriate scope for a 12-15 page paper (e.g. if you are interested in development issues, pick a specific case or setting rather than development in general or some broad national context).
In a scientifically compelled society, topics concerning student achievement and teacher accountability are at the forefront of reform dialogue. Critics claim this discussion displaces necessary discourse about the moral components of teaching. Some believe that many teachers are ill equipped to teach morally in the increasingly complex teaching environments motivated by modern policies and inadequate support. These charges are especially aimed at reform programs that exclusively emphasize results and data. A data driven organization, Teach For America (TFA) is based on the goal of revitalizing education by recruiting high performing college graduates to teach for two year stints in underperforming schools. In the ongoing debate surrounding TFA, there has been little discussion about the quality of moral training that TFA members receive. Using moral teaching best practices literature to review Teach For America’s training program, it can be seen that, although Teach For America springs from high minded ideals, its corps training programs fail corps members and their students by inadequately training corps members in the moral dimensions of teaching; nonetheless, Teach for America’s structure allows for prompt policy changes, though its funding concerns may provide enough of an incentive for TFA to retain many core training policies that counteracts moral teacher training.
A quick review of the history of education shows that education policy has been driven by various motives and that the influential forces in today’s education reform movements are no different (Molnar, 1996; Kuratko, 2005). However, despite the influences that drive changes in educational goals, the compelling purpose of education is fundamentally moral and drawn from the interactions and transfers of ideas, beliefs, and ethics between people. “Anyone teaching in a classroom, to varying degrees and with different levels of success, engages in teaching morally and teaching morality” (Sanger and Osguthorpe, 2013:4). Dedicated teachers have the burden of upholding the moral mission of education. As Walter Feinberg writes in The Moral Dimensions of Teaching, “Education does have a moral mission, and that mission has to do with the creation of a public in a democratic society… …The major role of public education is to create a public” (Goodlad, Soder, and Sirotnik, 1990:181). Entering the public, as Feinberg suggests, requires that one searches to enter a conversation about one’s own nature, interprets it, and engages in the process of constituting it. Teaching morality is not the practice of teaching a set of virtues or absolute morals. Rather, teaching morality is the practice of teaching students the ability to function in a moral world by processing moral inputs, judging them for their moral worth, and responding in a moral manner. Teaching morally involves teaching morality to the budding public but it also involves actin morally. As Feinberg identified, teachers must be able to guide students towards this goal as well evaluate the collective institution that contributes to the quality of the public-forming process, such as the media and other institutions (Goodlad et al., 1990:183). It is only in self evaluation and conducting oneself morally can they be invested in creating a public. Finally, because teachers are entrusted with this role, institutions that teach teachers are entrusted with the role of training teachers to be effective moral agents.
Without proper instruction in educating others in morality, teachers too often ignore moral education as a point of instruction or inadequately resolve moral qualms in their work. Preservice teachers must grapple with moral and ethical frameworks during their training.
More anecdotally, our experiences have repeatedly shown that engaging candidates and teachers in inquiries into the moral dimensions of their practices often provides what one veteran teacher suggested was a rather cathartic grant of “permission” to acknowledge and pursue those moral dimensions in meaningful, explicit, and well-guided ways, rather than leaving them as part of the hidden curriculum of teacher (Sanger and Osguthorpe, 2013:8).
Some teaching programs accomplish this by reviewing various philosophies, such as consequentialism, and discussing morally messy teaching circumstances using learned vocabulary (Sanger and Osguthorpe, 2013). This integrates an understanding of moral theory with practical knowledge and gives teachers permission to freely discuss moral matters.
Additionally, it is important for teachers to understand youth psychological and moral development. “[To teach morally] teachers would need to know what contributes most effectively to their students’ moral development, and be able to incorporate those things into their teaching practice” (Sanger and Osguthorpe, 2013:7). Children’s psychological development occurs differently at different ages, and a thorough understanding of how moral development occurs allows teachers to structure their lessons with a better sense of the impact of their teachings. For instance, a younger child with a tendency to respond to short term consequences may not gain as much from a long term consequence oriented lesson as a more mature child. A teacher’s role is not only limited to conveying moral knowledge, but also it also necessitates conducting oneself morally. As students, preservice teachers must also learn to discuss, judge, and act in the environment they find themselves in. This requires preservice teachers to reflect on their service. One training program with this in mind describes as aspect of their plan: “Teacher candidates observe the moral dimensions of teaching daily and reflect upon their observations and their practice in relation to what it means to be a teacher who is just and wise” (Sanger and Osguthorpe, 2013:80). In any learning environment, teachers are not the only inputs or examples of morality. Teachers need to have some freedom in critiquing the overall system, and addressing whether the system and they are playing a moral role in education (Sanger and Osguthorpe, 2013). To adequately do so, teachers must also be willing to invest in the environment they are engaged in.
Two final components of a strong moral teaching education are a support network and strong teaching fundamentals. A network allows new teachers to discuss and learn on the job. Because teachers cannot truly master teaching without being in a classroom, time actually spent teaching is needed (Veltri, 2010:62). Teachers get better the longer they teach. Additionally, without strong fundamentals, it is almost impossible to be an effective moral teacher. “Moral education requires pedagogical content knowledge like any other instructional objective. Effective instruction will have good outcomes on a range of interest to moral character educators, but such an effect will be catalyzed when best practice in yoked to intentional commitment to the content of morality, virtue, and values” (Sanger and Osguthorpe 2013:123). This reaffirms the belief that a moral focus ultimately improves the education that eachers may offer. As discussed, a strong moral teaching education composes of discussing morality, understanding youth development, reflecting on one’s teaching environment, having a strong support network, and having strong pedagogical knowledge.
If teachers are unable to teach morally, they fail the institution of learning. “Teaching and schooling are not simply enriched by the presence of personal, moral, aesthetic, and democratic elements, and thus impoverished by their absence, but that these elements are essential to the basic function of teaching and schooling as educational enterprises” (Sanger and Osguthorpe, 2013:5). More tangibly, a strong moral education may be especially important for students deemed to be “at risk”. For instance, KIPP students from a particular KIPP school, who achieved very highly on standardized tests during their KIPP years, failed to graduate from college. “But for many students in that first cohort, things didn’t go as planned. Almost every member of the [KIPP] Class of 2003 did make it through high school, and most of them enrolled in college. But then the mountain grew steeper – eight students – had completed a four-year college degree” (Tough, 2013:50). This particular school’s solution was to focus on instilling virtues in their students. “They eventually settled on a list of twenty-four character strengths they believed to be universally respected. In most societies, Seligman and Peterson wrote, character strengths were considered to have a moral valence, and in many cases they overlapped with religious laws and strictures” (Tough, 2013:59). Though this particular KIPP school decided to create a list of morals to teach, their solution points to the necessity of a teaching with morality in mind. Ignoring morality while teaching may be akin to ignoring stoplights while driving. It prevents students from receiving a quality education, a moral failing on the part of the institution.
Institutions that do not prepare teachers sufficiently also fail their teachers, who may encounter circumstances that they are illiterate on. As the book Ethics in the Classroom portrays, a multitude of unique situations exist where teachers are forced into moral dilemmas—the hiring process, teacher confidentiality standards, and sexual relations are issues that the book speaks to (Mahoney, 2008). The book argues for increased dialogue concerning ethical and moral frameworks and self reflection in preservice teacher training programs in order to prepare teachers to actively participate in the systems in which they will operating. Thus, it is necessary for teachers to be able to both be moral and teach morally. Institutions that train teachers must understand this requirement.
After discussing the moral ends of education and programmatic methods of training teachers on their integration in the classroom, Teach For America’s training program can be evaluated. Though much of Teach For America’s training material is not public, several papers and reports allow some insight into parts of Teach For America’s rigorous five-week summer training program. The training program takes place at one of many Institutes Teach For America has around the country (Teach For America). In a typical day of training, corps members wake up at at 5 a.m. and sleep at 11:30 p.m. Typical activities include team teaching, learning about curriculum development, planning calendars and attending workshops (Scheiner, 2013; Veltri, 2010). An advertised selling point of the program, data driven teaching is focused on in Teach For America’s training program. The data driven methodology of Teach For America is described in Teaching as Leadership (Teach For America 2013). The founder of TFA, Wendy Kopp, maintains that one of the essential components of TFA is its rigorous application process, which selects individuals with personalities best suited for learning on the job, working through hardships and difficulties, and teaching passionately (2001). The combination of high achieving graduates, a rigorous training schedule and a focus on business data methods is the particular methodology TFA has created for its Institutes.
Unfortunately, while many programs are trending towards these training styles, especially emphasizing data incorporated teaching, both shorter training periods and the emphasis on data limit the emphasis on moral teaching. Shorter training periods cause programs to strictly emphasis on the most pressing standards—typically legal requirements. “Research suggests that the focus on other and more pressing federal requirements, such as adequate yearly progress, effectively squeeze out other important programs from the official school curriculum” (Sanger and Osguthorpe 2013:117). This is especially relevant to Teach For America training, as its universal training method needs to train teachers on broader and more general requirements, putting little emphasis on addressing moral justifications for such standards. Similarly, while data driven teaching may improve results, its emphasis naturally shifts conversation away from the moral dimensions of teaching. “This emphasis on measuring teacher effectiveness in terms of student achievement negates the impact teachers can potentially have on the development of students’ moral and intellectual virtue” (Sanger and Osguthorpe 2013:75). Certainly, simply teaching data driven methods does not preclude Teach For America from teaching moral teaching methods. However, the shortened time frame that Teach For America operates under is certainly not the most conducive environment to train teachers about teaching morally.
In addition to the limiting construction of the Institute, its content does not seem to bridge any moral theory to actual practice. This may be a product of the one-size-fits-all curriculum in combination with a shortened training time. Some teachers report that they are inadequately prepared to the school environment (Veltri, 2010). As one TFA alum reported, “I don’t believe that 5 weeks of team-teaching summer school prepares anyone for their first year of teaching. It would be much more beneficial to spend six quality weeks of long-term planning specific to my school and grade level” (Veltri, 2010:196). Teach For America’s universal class structure may not be useful to every teacher who face a range of different environments.
Systemic realities (large class size, inadequate supplies and funding, frequent administrative and teacher turnover, inconsistent support, external mandates that dictated a scripted curriculum, and a myriad of community issues) comprised the teacher profession landscape of Teach For America first-year teachers (Veltri 2010:84).
Being part of the Teach For America corps group seems to isolate members from dealing with problems in the community, which does not allow teachers to fully participate morally in the environments they are placed in.
Additional problems can be found in the core assumptions of Teach For America. One fundamental assumption of Teach For America’s philosophy is that the bright students who they recruit have the capacity to teach well and struggle through the adversity (Kopp, 2001). However, this philosophy also seems to undermine a crucial belief in the difficulty of teaching well.
Despite their enthusiasm for teaching, they know little about what is involved. They do not typically think of teaching as a profession that is both morally and intellectually demanding. Nor are they cognizant that teaching is craft to be developed. They imagine that once they know mathematics or English or science, they will know how to teach it. For them, teaching is talking, the transmission of information. Doing it well is a matter of personality, not of intellect. It requires enthusiasm but not judgment (Sanger and Osguthorpe, 2013:44).
Although this criticism is leveled against preservice teachers of all programs, it seems to accurately describe the particular type of students that TFA recruits. In fact, many corps members report that they had not thought of teaching as a profession until Teach For America approached them (Veltri, 2010). This is not to claim that recruited members do not soon realize the demands teaching imposes. The concern is that the philosophy is institutionalized in TFA’s structure in a manner that prevents them from acknowledging the need to delve into moral training during the training program.
Though many parts of Teach For America training do not contribute towards training moral teachers, the Teach For America structure still retain some policies that may help contribute to the development of moral teaching. Teach For America has worked to incorporate support networks into its structure (Kopp, 2001). Some concern has been raised whether the support structure, such as partnering with partner organization and hiring administrative teachers, is overburdened or underutilized (Veltri, 2010). However, no official judgment of the system can be made because no objective, comprehensive analysis has been conducted. What does appear to hinder injecting moral discussion into training is the process of hiring up within the organization. Morally unequipped Teach For America teachers are asked to train others. “When new corps members enter Corps Training Institute, and attend All-Corps Meetings, they recognize immediately, that former TFAers assume primary responsibilities for enculturation of applicants, candidates, and eventually, first and second year corps members” (Veltri, 2010:75). The evidence suggests that the quality of moral training that previous TFA corps members received is not sufficient enough to be successful master teachers. This cycle of amoral teaching seems to be built into the internal promotion structure of TFA.
Finally, research on the capability of TFA teachers in general in decidedly mixed (Department of Education, 2013). Specific analysis of the quality of pedagogical knowledge that TFA teachers receive is lacking, though it is important to note the dearth of discussion of the moral components of teaching in TFA training materials. However, “In 2004 and 2005 a majority of TFA teacher responded that they thought their TFA training prepared them as well as possible for their teaching stint” (Scheider, 2013). Self reporting is certainly not the most accurate method of reviewing the moral components of the teacher training program, but it does provide insight that the training is helpful to teachers trying to adapt to their new circumstances.
In conclusion, though TFA currently has a support system in place and appears to offer seemingly adequate pedagogical training, it lacks a fundamental discussion of the integration of morality in the teaching profession. Additionally, emphasis on a special Teach For America mentality and philosophy, data driven teaching, and a general approach to environmental training works against effective moral training.
Teach For America has, over the years, slowly worked to improve the support networks Teach For America teachers have (Foote, 2008). Additionally, hiring different teachers to run the Teacher Institute is also very possible. The program has sought highly experienced teachers to lead the program before (Kopp, 2001). These two changes would begin to align Teach For America training with suggested methodology.
Unfortunately, though high stakes accountability is purported to be a hindrance to moral teaching, TFA could not feasibly remove it due to institutional concerns. Due to the various challenges against the organization, TFA uses high stakes testing as a method of documenting its success and receiving funding. “The organization’s emphasis on data provides another example. Such emphases are not common in college- and university-based programs, and have proven popular with funders in the business community” (Scheider, 2013).
The same can be said of attempting to lengthen the summer training program. One barrier to extending the program comes from the applicants. “Teach For America provided a quick route into the teaching profession with no extra expense or time spent taking education courses. The possibility of moving from college to the classroom quickly ranked as the overriding reason for applying to Teach For America. Expediency was cited by 95% of the study participants who were not involved in traditional teacher education and did not want to dedicate more schooling or years preparing for their classroom assignment” (Veltri, 2010:21). More importantly, a longer training period is antithetical to the funders’ beliefs. “Perhaps most surprising is the fact that several leaders at TFA, speaking off the record, indicated that they believe the summer training institute should be longer than the current length of five weeks. That, however, is impossible given the outward image that TFA presents to the reform community—a community antagonistic to anything resembling conventional teacher education” (Scheider, 2013).
By attempting to lengthen the training period and remove the high stakes accountability, Teach For America would be putting its existence at risk and is therefore unable to change their policies. However, other components that are missing from the program can be added, and the incentive of producing better teachers should encourage Teach For America to implement suggested reforms. There is room for Teach For America to improve and the TFA has the capability to do so rapidly and effectively.
This paper is not interested in promoting the immediate discontinuation of Teach For America, though the literature advocating that result is dense (Hartman, 2011: Korn, 2013). As some suggest, institutional problems beyond Teach For America’s controls need to be examined as rigorously as Teach For America has (Halliday, 2006: Boyle, 2013). This paper is interested in analyzing the avenues that Teach For America could take to improve. It is important to note, in discussing moral teaching education, that many formal graduate teaching programs also do not include courses concerning morality in the classroom (Sanger and Osguthorpe, 2013). In this respect, Teach For America does not seem to lag too far behind its traditional counterparts. But in aligning with TFA’s moral mission of improving education, its training program has to change. TFA training currently lacks a much needed focus on moral education. However, the process has the potential be realistically improved, benefitting both teachers and students. The TFA training process has the potential to be better, and TFA has shown a willingness to do so. In conclusion, TFA’s need in balancing funding and teaching quality means that it may never be perfect, though there is an immediate inventive and benefit in policy Changes to Teach For America’s training program.
I read this paper with great interest, not only because of its relevance to the course but as a TFA alumnus. I think, in many ways, the critique of TFA presented—namely, that it inadequately prepares its corps members for the moral demands of teaching—is a fair and accurate one. Thinking about the moral dimensions of teaching brings into question the kind of “solution” to school problems that TFA offers. Can we really expect people with only minimal training to be truly engaged in the moral dimensions of the craft of teaching?
Despite my sympathy to your position, I must offer a few critiques of your paper. First, while I appreciate the ideas that you present from Sanger and Osguthorpe, I cannot help but think that they come across as bit muddled and confused—and a bit jargon-y (a common ailment in education circles). To put it frankly, I am not sure what the “moral” dimensions of teaching are after reading your first major section. Is it about moral theory? Is it about self-reflection? Or is it about the students’ moral development? I am not sure if they are unclear on this or you are. But as someone predisposed to think in these terms, I still found myself confused.
That being said, without a strong idea of what this looks like, I feel like I am in an even worse position to judge how these ideas should be brought to standard teacher training, let along TFA’s rushed teacher training. The heart of your paper is that TFA does not do a good job doing this. Well, it is not clear that traditional educational programs are either. In a lot of ways, TFA does address this implicitly (speaking from experience) as it frames the organization’s very mission in terms of social justice and moral purpose. You join TFA because you want to make a difference.
So what are they missing then? What components of S&G’s moral training are they really missing compared to the run of the mill education program? Arguably, TFA comes across as more moralistic and less vocational. That being said, I tend to think any vocation/profession has its specific moral dimensions that need further explicit consideration—doctors, lawyers, teachers, etc. Is this what S&G are getting at?
While I enjoyed parts of this paper, it was a bit jumbled and unclear in its argumentation. Try to work through the jargon rather than get taken in by it. What are S&G really offering us? Don’t just buy into their critique of TFA. Push back and put the ideas to the test. I certainly agree that TFA has its problems, but I am not convinced that this problem is really any different than any other teaching program. I am certainly willing to be convinced, but the evidence presented in this paper is a bit too thin and the argument a bit too muddled.