Damn, Chimaobi just stole on like 40 MTCers

You can go and check out his post to get the full run-down.  Basically, the big homey walked into into Sal's and asked why ain't there no pictures of brothers on the wall.

Salmookie

I'm partial to racial tribalism just like the next Public Enemy listening, former BSU presiding, Afro-American studies concentrating, Pam Grier is the sexiest woman ever to walk the face of the earth believing negro.
So at a surface level, it seems commonsensical enough.  MTC sends teachers to some of the poorest, and most consistently underperforming school districts in the poorest, most consistently underperforming state of the union.  This state also has the largest percentage of African-African Americans.  There are communities that have high concentrations of poor white children in the state of Mississippi; these communities face some of the same issues of academic underperformance.  MTC, however, does not send teachers to these places.  So, If you apply to MTC, you already know that you are going to be teaching poor black children.  The million dollar question: what type of MTC applicant is best equipped to make an immediate impact on these children's lives?

Chimaobi's point hinges on the idea that strong black role models in the classroom (and the community) can provide a tangible counter-example to the limited roles these children can imagine themselves occupying as aduts.   The idea that, I can empathize with you because I am like you resonates.  Not to say, that a white teacher cannot inspire or relate to their kids in a way that will inspire change.  In a recent conversation with Amani and Abe, we discussed how race plays out in the student-teacher relationship.   Certainly, Abe is as empathetic as you can get, and he will do whatever is in his power to help his students.  Still, as he said, there are certain things he cannot do in the classroom, like explicitly appeal to how he hates seeing young black men throw away their future, that Amani could accomplish.  I don't think this makes Amani a better teacher than Abe.  It does, however, make her, in this specific context, more accessible to her students.  In some ways this accessibility can be a double-edged sword, but it is always a valuable asset in reaching children who are often closed to the possibility of a teacher caring about their plight.

The part of Chimaobi's post that really got me intrigued was Ben's question and the subsequent response.  What, in the long-term, could MTC do solve the education gap in Mississippi?  Certainly, the program is limited in scope.  It cannot get policies passed in the state legislature or get new pilot programs funded.  It can, however, choose what type of individuals are ultimately selected into the program.  Which circles back to my original question:  what type of MTC applicant is best equipped to make an immediate impact on the children in these communities?  If we are to take Malcolm Gladwell's argument at face value, it is almost impossible to measure what type of individual would be a good teacher without actually seeing them in the classroom.  Ben, Dr. Mullins and Dr. Mcconnell have been doing this a lot longer than I have, so I imagine that they have a general idea of what qualities they want to see in a potential applicant.  Still, I wonder, if we are casting the net wide enough.   Gladwell says, rather than continuously raise the bar on things like test scores, undergraduate gpas, and other metrics (trying to be the New TFA), what if  we were to, somehow, do a better job of measuring "withness"?  Or, in other words, what if MTC were to do a better job of measuring people who demonstrated the qualities that life-long teachers possessed?

Again, actually accomplishing this objective would be difficult.  Either you have to be willing to take a greater chance on, what I imagine what would look like on paper as "high risk" applicants.  And, one of the things I imagine that the program, and its various financial benefactors, look at is how competitive is each incoming class with regards to undergraduate gpa, quality of undergraduate institution, etc.  Still, I could see the program doing more with local recruiting and brand identification.  At Jim Hill, for example, there are several young teachers who I think would have made great MTC candidates.  One, is a second-year, black male science teacher who graduated magna cum laude from Jackson State, was a McNair scholar, and is strongly considered getting a Phd but decided to teach for a couple of years to earn money for graduate school.  Another, a white female who graduated from St. Olaf, has been at Jim Hill  for the past four years.  At a a recent reception for Jim Hill IB diploma graduates, I spoke with two Jim Hill graduates who expressed interest in teaching during the time between when they graduated from Tougaloo and when they went off to Medical school.  When I mentioned that they should consider MTC, they were completely clueless and had never heard the program discussed at their school.

Here's the thing:  I think that the free Masters degree that MTC provides would be an incredibly valuable tool/incentive for people who have already lived in Mississippi and are going to continue to teach and live in Mississippi.  Talking with the teacher I mentioned earlier who had been at Jim Hill for four years, she thought it was ironic that there had been several MTC folks who had only been at Jim Hill one to two years, yet all were getting a masters in education.  If MTC were to increase the visibility of its brand, it could attract not only high caliber applicants from within the state, but potential teachers who are from the communities we are trying to send teachers.  Potential teachers who might have the prerequisite "withness" to be sucessful in the long-term.   With a free masters degree, many would be willing to put other career interests on hold and consider teaching beyond the initial two-years. The idea of settling down, or at least spending an extended period of time, in the state would not be a foreign, detached concept.  Additionally, it would provide an additional, tautological benefit.  If you can attract the best and brightest from Mississippi colleges, the MTC brand in the state of Mississippi becomes this increasingly prestigious institution that continues to attract the state's best and brightest.