Combine that with a certain minimal savvy on the subject I took (which translated well to other subjects which I continued learning on my own), and the fact that I only completed half the program, and budgeted it to include tax breaks, it was overall worth it.

But really in not-insignificant-part because it was an eye opener to just how bad so-called formal education actually really is. That was was the real education I consider myself to have gotten.

But upon reflection resultant from reading the comments, I have changed my opinion. Education is one of my baseline passions.

I am someone who absolutely hated school (all aspects of it) who wet-dreams about innovative teaching methods that make learning fun. I read an excellent brief history of modern education, which shows where we are coming from (and how we got here).

One thing that absolutely astounded me as a young adult once I gtfo of school was some perspective on just how BORING school made subjects that were actually interesting. A brief stint as a returning student to a subject which is the most fun-assed subject in the world was likewise taught with all the vim and vigor of the whiskey-dick of a life-long drunk on the skids.

And it wasn’t really “the teachers’” fault, as humans we adapt to the (pre-existing) conditions in which we find ourselves. We adopt to the law of the land, we’re not as a species cut out to be trail-blazers so much as conformers. So we’d better make sure that the systems/relationships/etc. in which we find ourselves automatically and unthinkingly adapting to are fundamentally sound.

This requires a certain amount of trailblazing — also endemic to our species.

Learning is muthafuckin’ fun. The shit is fun, in fact, it’s the shit.

So why was I bored out of my ever-lovin’ skull (even as an adult, in the most fun subject I could be studying?) Because supa fun education is not the norm yet, it’s elite and expensive, yo. And still it’s the exception (plenty of shitty expensive “elite” schools out there, too.)

However, it’s cusping (potentially, and (almost) almost certainly).

So, upon review, I am going to change my first response and “like” this article. Big-ups on promoting what you can get out of teaching and making it seem (well, not fuckin’ fun, pretty miserably hard it sounds) but rewarding personally. Enticing. For making it seem like a cool thing to do. For you.

Enlightened self-interest has to be a base-line, because nothing else is actually sustainable. I know I’m no fucking saint. And I know most of us aren’t. But I am pretty self-interested and to connect that to a healthy whole and community is a good thing.

So Andrew, you are doing a good thing here. Not just encouraging people to be self-interested cunts (yep, I was kind of leaning towards that on a first read), but to be self-interested people who give teaching a go, because the net-value of that actually is likely to be high for all of us, as a society. Not just you (whoever you are) on your career path.

Teaching — teaches you things.

And learning…….. should be waaaaaaaaaaay more fun and interesting. OMG when I got dropped from the gifted programs into regular class because of cutting too much. Jesus, people. We can do way better institutionally to make the shit fun/engaging/interesting/exciting.

I actually love learning on line, sometimes from like 13 year olds (but always from people who are sharing knowlege for the fun of it to be helpful). They’re like…. yeah, and this is cool, and this is cool, and then you can do that!

Learning is fun. Duh.

The way in which I think TFA *might* be good for schools, is that it is an affordable way to become a teacher and attracts successful, hard working students.

I think that would make sense if TFA were conceived of as an alternative licensing program for people who were going to pursue a career in teaching. That’s not what it is, though. TFA assumes that its participants are much too smart and good for a career in teaching. Instead, they’ll teach for two years and then move on into more worthy careers in things like education policy. Then they can use their two years teaching in disadvantaged schools to give them credibility when they make recommendations for education reform. But they’re not actually going to spend their careers teaching. That’s for little people.

Beyond that, I don’t think it’s possible to learn how to teach in any other way than going into the classroom and trying it. A lot of teachers even outside of TFA leave after 1-3 years of teaching for all sorts of reasons, but most agree that their education courses weren’t really helpful in terms of practical experience.

Do I think the students benefited from Andrew as much as he benefited from his experience? I don’t know. Classroom chemistry is tricky. I had students and classes that did better with me than they did with their original teacher, and I had classes and students who would have picked their original teacher over me every time. It’s thirty relationships, plus the group dynamic. So it’s hard to say, because there are a ton of variables at play.

I’d also say that I don’t think it’s “intensely fucked up” to talk about what the teacher got from teaching. This is a short conversational piece about the author’s experience, not a detailed essay addressing his comprehensive role as a teacher. Also, I don’t think feeling like a failure motivated the author, I get the sense that feeling like he was failing his students was what drove him to work harder and try new things, which would mean that the students were at the center of this. They motivated him to find new ways to teach and new ways to think about classroom management. So, from where I’m sitting, while this is a discussion about the author’s experience, that experience centers around what he did (and did not do) for his students.

Also, sad to say but most education research shows that teacher quality explains only about 30% of the variation in student outcomes, at most. Having someone who is at least trying is probably better than the alternative (either nothing, or someone who doesn’t give a shit) so we can say that TFA, while not perfect, is at least Pareto-improving.