Education quotations of the week (11-22-09)

This week’s quotations are related to Teach For America, the non-profit organization through which I got my start in education:

One day, all children in this nation will have the opportunity to attain an excellent education. (Teach For America’s vision statement–this may not seem like much now that we’re in the No Child Left Behind era and every child is expected to be proficient in reading and math by 2014, but pre-2002, using the phrase “all children” was a pretty big deal)

The work was piling up. My solution was to begin sleeping every other night. (Wendy Kopp, Teach For America’s founder, recalling the challenges of starting the organization as a 23-year-old back in 1990, in her book One Day, All Children, p. 38)

You’re going to feel like you’re failing every single day. (One of our TFA Chicago program directors back in 2001, explaining the challenges we were about to face as new teachers in the city’s toughest schools)

I hope young Americans all across the country think about joining Teach for America. (President George W. Bush, in a 2002 speech asking citizens to put 2 years or 4,000 hours of volunteer service toward America)

I also hope that in working together from all directions we succeed in creating a society in which we truly prioritize education, and respect and value the work of educators…not just with “Teachers Have Class” tote bags and 5% discounts at Office Depot, but genuine esteem. A society in which my student’s question of why someone like me would be just teaching, and in the Mississippi Delta no less, would never even come to mind. (Tiffany Tidwell, TFA alumna, speaking at the organization’s 15th anniversary alumni summit in 2005)

96% of our nation’s senators attended law school. Imagine if 96% of them had taught for two years in an under-resourced school. (Text from a Teach For America promotional item in the early 2000s)