Members of Sustained Dialogue and Teach for America co-hosted an open forum Tuesday to discuss the nation’s opportunity gap and rural inequalities with Teach for America corp members.
Fourth-year College student Sydney Shivers, the TFA campus campaign coordinator at the University, began the program by leading the attendees in an activity called “walk a mile.” The goal of the activity was to gauge the secondary educational background of the group.
TFA corps members in attendance served in rural areas such as South Dakota, Appalachia, and the Mississippi Delta. They spoke of lack of support to pursue higher education in these areas.
“At my school, [college] was something [students] were thinking about,” corps member Stephanie Tanner said. “[The students] know that college is something that they should do, but then there’s not the support to get there and there’s not a big culture or social pressure to go to college.”
Tanner said at her school in Kentucky, the students who do pursue college very rarely leave the state. She said this was partially because of the sense of community that is fostered in eastern Kentucky.
“There’s also a fear of pushing your boundaries and abandoning your community,” Tanner said. “Humility is a huge core value there.”
Alix Smith, another corps member, expressed similar sentiments.
“Basically, you can’t go beyond what your parents did,” Smith said. “It’s shameful to your family if your parents were to graduate high school and not get any further education, and you don’t want to ‘go above your raisings’ and go to a university, because it’s not the humble thing to do.”
Tanner said that after hearing one of her students claim they were “too country to learn Spanish,” she said she wanted students to learn that they could keep their accent and heritage and still pursue academia.
Panelists spoke about the difficulty of promoting different post-graduation options to students, as college is not always a reasonable choice for everyone.
“If you have a child who you tell, ‘It’s OK, you make your choice,’ and then they get a 16 on the ACT and don’t really have the option to go to college, then it’s not a real choice for them to push," Smith said. "This is something I’ve been wrestling with, too.”
They also spoke of vocational school as a post-graduate option for some students.
“I’m not going to stop them from that,” Tanner said. “But I think the important thing is making sure they have a vision for themselves, and if they don’t have an idea developed, then making sure they’re prepared for as many things as possible for when they graduate.”
Smith and Tanner both said a main goal for TFA is to inspire students to care about their educations.
“It’s important to step back and be patient and invest kids and make them want to do something,” Smith said. “It’s so much more effective in long run — well-rounding them and creating a good classroom culture and a positive space.”
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