“If you can’t do, teach” is just one of several negative
sentiments towards teaching that has made education an undesirable profession.
However, with the predicted one million teachers that are set to retire in the
next four to six years, the profession needs as many bright and eager new educators
as it can get. In order to deal with this change the Department of Education
created Teach, a campaign that hopes to combat negative sentiments and attract
high-achieving college graduates.
Under the slogan “Make More. Teach,” the campaign uses
videos and radio announcements to portray teaching as meaningful and captivating
as more popular careers, such as medicine and law. “The challenge is to change
the conversation around teaching so that it becomes the career that you want
your child to go into rather than the career that you counsel children out of,”
explains Kathy Payne, the senior director of education leadership at State
Farm.
One of the negative sentiments towards teaching is that
there are not enough job openings for hopeful teachers. With the upcoming
retirement of the baby boomers, there is now “an amazing chance to make a
difference for decades to come,” says Arne Duncan, secretary of education.
Through financial support from sponsors, Teach is able to hire recruiters to
visit college campuses in order to speak to undergraduate students about a
future career in teaching. The campaign also deals with the battles within the
public education system concerning the use of standardized testing in teacher
performance evaluations and the rollout of the new Common Core standards. “If
you find different ways to communicate with and teach kids, where it’s not just
that same old thing…that’s what’s going to get those test scores raised,” says
Cliff Skeet, group creative director at McGarryBowen, the advertising agency
that developed the videos and ads used by the campaign.
The Teach campaign aims to recruit top students into the
teaching field, making the profession as competitive and invigorating as
medicine, law, and engineering. “Teachers today are breaking down obstacles,”
says former teacher Taylor Mali. “[They are] finding innovative ways to instill
old lessons, proving that greatness can be found in everyday places.” Through
the campaign, the Department of Education hopes to recruit new teachers who
will be able to make a difference in not only their students’ lives but also in
the profession itself.
Here at Project Tomorrow, our mission is to ensure that today's students are well prepared to be tomorrow's innovators, leaders and engaged citzens of the world. Through our YouthTEACH2Learn program
and the Future
Educators Association of California we are working towards preparing the
next great generation of teachers.
The YouthTEACH2Learn program is a career exploration program
where students explore teaching as a career. During the course, the students
gain practical experience by observing elementary school classrooms, learning
how to teach, developing and teaching standards-based lessons to younger
students in neighboring elementary schools and participating in local community
service projects. To learn more about YouthTEACH2Learn log onto
The Future Educators Association of California, an
initiative of Project
Tomorrow, was established in order to “attract, equip and provide
experiences for students who are exploring teaching as a future career; to
develop essential skills that will lead to highly trained and qualified
teachers.” Now, more than ever, we must invest & support our future
educators in order to plan for a bright tomorrow. To learn more about F.E.A
California, log onto http://www.tomorrow.org/fea/.
Read the article: Campaign Seeks to Recruit Top Students to Become Teachers in the New York Times here, and be sure to let us know what you think!
Have a great week.
-The Project Tomorrow team
-The Project Tomorrow team
Written by Lisa Chu, Project Tomorrow Fall Intern
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