Teaching in the Terrordome: Two Years in West Baltimore with Teach for America (Volume 1),Used

Teaching in the Terrordome: Two Years in West Baltimore with Teach for America (Volume 1),Used

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SKU: SONG0826219861
Brand: University of Missouri Press
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Only 50 percent of kids growing up in poverty will earn a high school diploma. Just one in ten will graduate college. Compelled by these troubling statistics, Heather Kirn Lanier joined Teach For America (TFA), a program that thrusts eager but inexperienced college graduates into Americas most impoverished areas to teach, asking them to do whatever is necessary to catch their disadvantaged kids up to the rest of the nation.With little more than a fiveweek teacher boot camp and the knowledge that David Simon referred to her future school as The Terrordome, the altruistic and nave Lanier devoted herself to attaining the programs goals but met obstacles on all fronts. The building itself was in such poor condition that tiles fell from the ceiling at random. Kids from the halls barged into classes all day, disrupting even the most carefully planned educational activities. In the middle of one lesson, a wandering student lit her classroom door on fire. Some colleagues, instantly suspicious of TFAs intentions, withheld their help and supplies. (They think youre trying to save the children, one teacher said.) And although high school students can be by definition resistant, in west Baltimore they threw eggs, slashed tires, and threatened teachers lives. Within weeks, Lanier realized that the task she was charged withachieving quantifiable gains in her students learningwould require something close to a miracle.Superbly written and timely, Teaching in the Terrordome casts an unflinching gaze on one of Americas dropout factory high schools. Though Teach For America often touts its most successful teacher stories, in this powerful memoir Lanier illuminates a more common experience of Teaching For America with thoughtful complexity, a poets eye, and an engaging voice. As hard as Lanier worked to become a competent teacher, she found that in The Terrordome, idealism wasnt enough. To persevere, she had to rely on grit, humility, a little comedy, and a willingness to look failure in the face. As she adjusted to a chaotic school administration, crumbling facilities, burnedout colleagues, and students who perceived their school for the failure it was, she gained perspective on the true state of the crisis TFA sets out to solve. Ultimately, she discovered that contrary to her intentions, survival in the socalled Charm City was a high expectation.

⚠️ WARNING (California Proposition 65):

This product may contain chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer, birth defects, or other reproductive harm.

For more information, please visit www.P65Warnings.ca.gov.

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