Why should someone join the Mississippi Teacher Corps?

Now would be the time for me to practice what I preach – that is, how to write with the purpose of persuading an audience. I teach my students how to do this mode of writing. Now I shall “utilize” it myself. Shall I defer to ethos (an appeal to ethics), logos (an appeal to logic) or pathos (an appeal to emotions) in my reasons to join MTC? How about one of each:

 

Ethos- I look to my hero, Jonathan Kozol, to articulate why one who is considering teaching to seriously consider teaching through MTC:

 

“But for the children of the poorest people we're stripping the curriculum, removing the arts and music, and drilling the children into useful labor. We're not valuing a child for the time in which she actually is a child. […]

Instead of seeing these children for the blessings that they are, we are measuring them only by the standard of whether they will be future deficits or assets for our nation's competitive needs. […]

Nationally, overwhelmingly non-white schools receive $1,000 less per pupil than overwhelmingly white schools.  […]

Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win. […]

So long as these kinds of inequalities persist, all of us who are given expensive educations have to live with the knowledge that our victories are contaminated because the game has been rigged to our advantage.”

 

Logos- If you are a person who loves to sink her teeth into hard work, to drink in the satisfaction that comes when you invest in someone, and to apply her love of school and learning to the work-a-day world, then you are a person who ought to join Teacher Corps. If you desire to make a contribution through your job, to find endless outlets for creative ability in your daily job requirements, to discover the joy of getting through to even just a few youths, then you should be processing the possibility of travelling here and taking root here for two years to do so. If you have long watered bright hopes of having a classroom and students to call your own, and if you want to see your dreams (if they resemble these I have written about) become reality please, begin the online application.

 

Pathos- The more I reflect on it, the more I realize that my deepest dream ever has been to be a teacher. I was raised by a born teacher, my father, and have, since third grade, drank (have drunk?) in lessons and the chance to be creative in school like a feeble little leaguer slurps up water. There is no place that makes me feel more alive than a classroom. I gravitate toward schoolwork and it returns every minute I put into it with this inexplicable reward of internal growth. School, learning, and relationships with my former teachers have always been a great basis of my happiness. As a Christian, I follow the words of the greatest Teacher, Jesus. In my life as a worker and in my life as a believer, I find joy and energy in the act of learning.

 

The point I am making here is, my very heart beats today because of the education I have pursued and been blessed with. I continually find my passions in the classroom. Why on earth would I let this marvelous miracle end?! For those who enjoy school, there really is no more natural bridge than right back into a school when emerging from college. Today, I am proud to call a school my work environment. Being in my classroom makes me feel more like me than almost any other activity I choose to do. At my very core, I am a student. Being a teacher allows me to keep up that identity, except to an even deeper degree now. Now others count on my sound understanding of concepts and on my own curiosity to deliver them the clarity of facts and abundance of internal resources they need to succeed.