Tami Vuong, a 2005 UCLA alumna, stepped anxiously last fall into
the South Bronx, New York elementary school that would be her Teach
For America school for the next two years. Her only greeting was a
message from the principal saying her classroom and the grade she
would be teaching had been changed.
Vuong said when she arrived to teach the first class of her
career, nothing at her intense summer training program could have
prepared her for what she found: a special education class of
third-grade children scaling walls, running out the door, biting,
fighting, and cursing violently.
Students with learning disabilities and behavioral disorders
such as Oppositional Defiant Disorder, which causes extreme bouts
of hostility, and ADHD were running out the door with no one at the
school there to retrieve them.
She knew she would be teaching special education but said she
“had no words to describe” her surprise at the lack of
structure in the school.
“For the first few months there was so much violence, I
wasn’t really teaching,” Vuong said.
Because Vuong planned to someday teach and help reform education
policies, TFA’s mission to provide a higher quality of
education at low-income schools resonated with her during her
senior year. After joining TFA, however, she said “it was
hard to tell if I was making a difference.”
Vuong, who worked for the Daily Bruin and interned in education
policy while at UCLA, said the sense of helplessness she felt was
typical of first-years in TFA.
“A lot of us were good students and used to being
successful and getting what we want,” Vuong said.
“Undergrad was nothing compared to this.”
Overwhelming as the new job was for Vuong, she said she could
not blame TFA for not training her properly.
“No one can ever really train you for something like this.
It’s just one of those things you have to experience to
know,” Vuong said. “TFA gave really good training …
(but) New York schools are just such a surprise when you get in
there, and every situation is unique.”
The support networks TFA promised her are smaller and more
distant than she would prefer. While some teachers work at schools
with 10 other TFA colleagues, Vuong works with only one.
“It would be great to have more TFA teachers at my school
because I’m one of the younger people on staff, so I feel
very alone and isolated,” Vuong said.
Vuong’s enthusiasm for TFA began to diminish as she found
that support networks from the program and staff and faculty at the
school were lacking.
As Vuong watched other TFA teachers leave the program, she said
she would think to herself, “God, if that was only
me.”
Halfway into the school year, it almost was.
“Right before February winter break, I was having a rough
time, and I didn’t know if I could return,” Vuong said.
“It was really bad in my classroom. I had three fights a day
in my classroom for three months straight.”
Vuong felt the stressful environment at her school was wearing
down both her mental and physical health, so she called her program
director with a request to transfer schools.
But her program director asked her to reconsider because
transferring teachers out could offend the school and harm its
relationship with TFA.
“I used to get harmed at this school, but they’re
not willing to think about you as an individual. Everything’s
for the greater good of the cause,” Vuong said.
Despite her frustration, Vuong shifted her thoughts from
TFA’s operation to the children in her classroom and the
value in staying with them.
Teaching in the South Bronx was challenging, but she thought
maybe being an example of patience and perseverance could be her
main contribution to her students.
“You have to be a model for them and be extremely patient
because (the students) are trying to make you angry,” Vuong
said. “These kids are constantly testing you. … They want
to see if, no matter what they do, you are still going to show that
you care and show that you love them.”
Vuong also saw untapped academic potential underneath each
student’s burdensome physical and economic handicaps.
She said she feels the school system forgets and fails these
children, many of whom have yet to learn the alphabet.
“Seeing how the rest of world treats these kids, it makes
me want to do something about it,” Vuong said. “I want
to go into education policy to change this system someday.
That’s why I’m still in TFA.”
At the same time, she wants prospective TFA teachers to know the
program is not for everyone; it’s not just “something
to do after graduation.”
“They try to get idealistic people to join, then reality
hits,” she said. “The hardest part is realizing how
overwhelming problems in the education system are, and you’re
such a small part of it.”