Gary Rubinstein's TFA Blog

Donate Now Is this ‘investment’ safe? One thing I want to make clear is that my goal here is not simply to ‘tear apart’ this book, magnifying small errors and ignoring any of its merit. I know this book is going to influence the decisions of many new teachers, so I’m actually on the lookout…

Donate Now The very first principle described in ‘Teaching As Leadership’ is ‘Set Big Goals.’ All effective teachers do this, they say, which I agree with. Implied is the converse that everyone who sets big goals will be an effective teacher or that many teachers who were not effective would have been more effective had…

Why the new TFA book could widen the achievement gap. I was excited to get my hands on the new TFA book ‘Teaching as leadership.’ For the past 19 years, I’ve been involved with TFA on many levels as a CM in 1991-1993, then eventually as an institute staff member in 1996. I’ve been a…

My new book has been released. I’m excited to announce that ‘Beyond Survival — How To Thrive In Middle and High School For Beginning And Improving Teachers’ has finally arrived. Some of my blog entries on this site actually served as rough drafts for this publication. I’m very excited about this since this book collects…

High Expectations? Not so fast. I think one of the most dangerously misinterpreted pieces of advice given to new teachers is “You must have high expectations.” The idea is that students will rise to whatever your expectations are, no matter how high they are. This sentiment is promoted by movies like ‘Stand And Deliver’ and…

Why managment ‘systems’ don’t work in middle or high school. By management ‘system,’ I mean some kind of incremental consequence ladder that you keep track of on a chart or with a clothespin that you, or the students, move to keep track of where each student is. When you were in middle or high school,…

Forced ‘investment’ is counterproductive. For the past (almost 20) years, I’ve observed the changes in the TFA teacher training philosophy. When I started in 1991, they were all about ‘portfolios,’ which were popular in the early 90s, but you don’t hear a lot about them anymore since they were not very practical. After my 4th…

From 1995 to 2003, I presented a workshop at the TFA institutes about classroom management and the realities of the first year of teaching. The ideas were considered useful enough to be published as a book in 1999 (It’s called ‘Reluctant Disciplinarian’). That book was adopted by the New York City Teaching Fellows as required…

Why two years? A lot has changed about TFA since it began in 1990. Of all the changes, the biggest one is TFA’s ‘mission.’ The original mission was not “One day all children in this nation will have the opportunity to attain an excellent education.” Instead there was a much more modest mission to fill…

Does TFA value teachers? I know it’s a strange question. Of course they must. That’s why the program is called TEACH for America. But I’ve noticed some things throughout the years that make me wonder. I’m one of those TFA teachers who taught beyond the two years (I taught for 4 in Houston. Then I…

« Previous Next »