Teach for Canada?

This New York Times article profiles Tom Dunn, a former defence attorney who switched careers in mid-life to become a teacher in an inner city middle school in Atlanta. Mr. Dunn took advantage of an alternative teacher certification program called Teach for America (TFA). TFA runs a five-week summer course which not only qualifies its graduates to teach in publicly-funded schools but also gives them an excellent preparation for teaching in low-income communities. As the TFA site points out, the impact of TFA teachers on their students’ achievement is as good as or better than that of teachers certified at a faculty of education.

In Canada, teacher certification programs take at least a year, discouraging potentially-good recruits such as university professors, music teachers, authors, and professionals of all kinds. As well, most Canadian teacher certification programs do a poor job of preparing their graduates for the classroom (see some of the “Teacher Training” articles in our newsletter archives for the gory details). A survey by the Ontario College of Teachers found that the province’s teachers ranked their training at faculties of education ninth in value as the source of their teaching skills, after such things as common sense and input from family members.

Canadian governments should consider introducing alternative teacher certification programs like Teach for America.

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