Teachable Moment

Respectfully, how many posts do we need that personally call out Sarah in some way? Here, let’s just get it over with.

Henceforth let it be known: this blog officially disagrees with Sarah.

(Thanks for clarifying – really, it wasn’t clear enough already in any of the other 19 threads!)

Jackie,

Thank you for your very constructive criticism. If all comments on this blog were fueled by the same respectful tone, then we wouldn’t be here in the first place.

I have acknowledged on more than one occasion that the writers and commenters here are obviously passionate about their work and seem to be very dedicated to their own students. But the fact is, this blog gets a lot of traffic and is very visible on the internet – meaning that people uninvolved in education may get a skewed idea about reform if not given another opinion to read. The authors are most certainly allowed their views, but when those opinions morph into a forum for belittling and devaluing the work of thousands, we have another issue on our hands. There are plenty of blogs and articles out there that express the same (often valid) arguments about TFA, but they don’t feel the need to do it in a manner unbecoming of professionals (ie, name-calling).

And I agree with you that the TFA data gets old. I’m personally sick of writing it myself, which is why I’m trying to put other posts on my blog. However, when I’m attempting to refute an argument based in emotion or sarcasm, facts seem to be the only reasonable option. I did not want to stoop to their level of name-calling, disrespect, and unfounded statements.

Finally, I truly appreciate the comment by Jackie and AVIW’s willingess to post it as a “teachable moment” for me and all others engaged in the debate. I appreciate even more how AVIW refrained from any disrespectful undertone in the post. Hopefully, a new precedent will be set for everyone from here on out. That said, I had been looking for a way to end my participation in the discussion for a while, since today is really my last day of free time all summer. Thank you to the authors for providing the forum and giving us all a chance to express our views.

Sarah-

We do get a lot of traffic in large part because YOU have continued to direct people here to continue this discussion. You are the one who began calling it a blog war. You are the one who sees that any attack against TFA as an organization is a personal attack against all its members. When AViW and I began this blog we did so not to attack TFA. In fact, our original post talked about Education as a whole and I focused on NYCTF because that was my experience as a NYCTF. My first mention of TFA as an organization came in April when I questioned the validity of a study by an organization that gives money to TFA which said the TFA teachers were more successful.

We did not begin this blog to attack TFA. However, when Socrates (some one that you raved about on your site and formed an alliance with without actually taking into consideration the context of our discussions with him) began touting advertisements for TFA and KIPP. We began doing research and came across many questionable relationships between TFA, KIPP, McGraw Hill, and others. The persistence of people like yourself to get us to accept TFA has made us question the organizations true intentions. Through its own PR as well as that of KIPP we have found that there seems to be a sinister agenda…

You have obviously not read our blog thoroughly. You believe that we are not progressive and have told us, like Soctates has, that we support the status quo. You fail to see that we are fighting the status quo every day and with every post.

If you want to combat what we say here, do so on your blog. We began this blog because we noticed that few blogs were asking the questions that we were asking. We began this blog to combat the dumbing down of America.

As far as the heated discussion and what you called personal attacks- they were brought on by the superior attitude that you bombarded us with from your very first comment.

I assumed your blog already got a lot of traffic when I stumbled upon it a couple of months ago, considering the number of links you have on the left and it’s position in google search.

Well, I tried to bridge the gap between the the views of our various teacher factions by pointing out over and again that our purpose is for the students, not ourselves. I was really, truly hoping for Learners see the difference between “heated discussion” (acceptable) and name-calling/personal attacks (unacceptable, but I guess you are entitled to your opinion).

So there you have it, you win. You have officially driven away your dissenting voice. Good luck with all of your future endeavors.

Sarah
I guess we should be slightly flattered that you feel that this blog generates so much traffic.

I think that all four of our readers will agree.

Seriously, though, Learners has tried to tell you a few times that you are actually generating much more traffic for us. Since this so called “debate” has started, we have seen a huge increase in the number of views.

Since Learners has told you this several times, and you still continue to drive traffic our way I am thinking that there are a couple of possible reasons for this:

Number one: You do not comprehend what we are saying.

I don’t think this is true because you seem fairly eloquent and intelligent.

Number two: You do not understand how blogs and status works.

I’m not sure about this, but I have a feeling that this isn’t true either. You knew enough to see where we came up in searches, so I think we should discount this one as well.

Number three: You are not as confident in Teach for America as you portray yourself to be.

I used to be very involved in my local church. One of the things I learned from the experience was that the people who seemed to have the most fervor, or who felt the greatest need to “defend” the belief system, actually had the most doubts.

I am starting to think that your continual visits here are because deep down, you might feel that we are right. Your arduous defense merely masks a weakening belief.

The lady doth protest too much.

You are welcome to keep coming back.

We always welcome new converts.

Thanks for the invitation. Don’t count on me converting, but maybe I can at least entertain you from time to time.

And for the record, it is number two. I’m actually not very tech-savvy and basically assumed that you got a lot of traffic because people were commenting on your posts and you have a lot of links to other blogs, including some I read. I don’t remember what exactly I searched for (it had something to do with the recent race riots in LA) when I found you in the first place, but you can’t have been far down the page.

Although, today I did manage to create an extremely simple web page for my students and embed my year-long calendar and unit plans into it. But that’s just because google spells it all out for people like me I tend to date the nerdy sorts to make up for my tech deficit.

I’m wondering why you have to have the last word. You said you were not going to come back, but yet you feel the need to respond. If you think our responses to you are demeaning, why do you keep responding? It’s almost compulsive.

Tom- our blog does not have feelings. It is not a person. Our blog does not disagree or dislike anyone. Just thought I would clarify.

Ummm… because I was trying to be polite and say thank you to AVIW… you know, manners… wow.

Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you were doing it because while you actually say that you are finished here you are actually obsessed with getting the last word. Now why would I think that?