Reader Questions: Should I Take a Year Off First?

I'm excited to see that people are actually reading this - and that gives me the chance to launch a new feature on this blog: Reader Questions.

CR (a college senior) writes:

I'm considering taking a year off before applying for the program just to take a break from school for a bit. In the meantime, I was going to try to better prepare myself by volunteering in a school in Mexico over the summer, as a research assistant with a professor during the school year (alongside my job), and prepping for the GREs. If you had the chance to go back and better prepare yourself, what would you have done? Do you think taking a year off is a bad idea before enrolling in such an intensive program?

Take a year "off" before joining TEP? Totally your call, but I certainly wouldn't recommend against it. This program is a career preparatory program - if you want to become a teacher, it gets you there, and that's probably the most important thing to know about it - so think about whether there's other experience that you would want to have first, either to prepare you for working in a school or to help you feel confident that this is what you want to do. 

I worked for four years between college and grad school, and that time did more by far to prepare me for teaching than my time in college did (I did study education in college, but not teaching). There's a lot of reasons for that: I was working in education; I got to learn a lot more about the context of living in an urban community; I learned more about living and acting like a professional adult (arguably); and I experimented with other types of work and became confident in my decision to become a teacher. 

The first term of TEP (July-August) is focused on the context for your teaching - in terms of the school system, in terms of the community where you'll teach, in terms of the cultural and political context in which schools sit. It's essential stuff, but it's kind of a whirlwind - and I certainly was glad that I was able to draw on some prior experience that I just never got from college.

Will taking time away from school harm your ability to succeed in the program? I doubt it. For context, there are some members of my cohort who are directly out of college, but most have been out for at least a year, and in some cases much more (we all get along well, regardless of age differences!). 

Do I think everybody needs to take time off before joining TEP (or any program like it)? No - but I think there's a few questions everyone should ask when deciding whether to jump in or hold off:

1. By taking a year out of school, will I learn something that will help me grow, or that will put the Teacher Education Program in context?
2. TEP is an accelerated program, and presumably people who join it are interested in becoming teachers quickly - so am I willing to delay an extra year?
3. Would it help me to earn some money before investing in grad school? (For many people, this is the most important question; it's very hard to earn money while doing the program, though not totally impossible - I did some freelancing over the summer, for example.)
4. Am I ready to make a major career move so quickly after college?

--

Don't worry - if you email with me, I'm not really this wordy unless you want me to be. Got any questions you think I should address? Email me at gojesse@gse.upenn.edu.

Mid-September Report: They Call Me Mr. Gottschalk

It sounds like “Got Chalk,” and I’ve got to tell you, the jokes don’t come nearly as readily now that everyone uses whiteboards. Of course, that presents a new source for comic material – one of my mother’s students once called her “Mrs. Not Chalk.” I decided to bring some chalk on my first day to help people remember my name, but I left it at home; none of my students took the opportunity to call me Mr. Forgot Chalk.

Anyway.

I’m just finishing up my second week of student teaching, and simultaneously pushing deeper into the fall term of coursework. What that actually means for my schedule:

About the Author

And, we’re live.

My name is Jesse, and I’ve gotten the assignment to blog for you about my year in the Elementary Teacher Education Program at Penn. After this post, I’ll start to dive into the program itself, but for my first entry I wanted to introduce myself.

Blog entry zero: Pre-blogging disclaimers

A few disclaimers (click here to skip ahead to, you know, the blogging):

This blog reflects my own opinions and experiences, and mine alone. While I am technically an employee of the admissions department, they do not review my blog entries before I post, nor would I be comfortable letting them (nor would they ask -- they seem to be pretty cool about this stuff).