Senior Sarah Kimball will be spending her first year out of Tufts far from the fast-paced life of metropolitan Boston: she will be working in a rural town in southern Louisiana. Opting for a non-traditional work experience, Kimball has accepted a position as an elementary school teacher with the Teach for America program.
Teach for America is a renowned non-profit organization with the goal of placing college graduates in poorer schools that, among others things, lack teachers.
The program is highly competitive, drawing 13,500 applicants last year, of whom only 2,000 were accepted. (The 14 percent acceptance rate is lower than Tufts'.) After a rigorous callback interview process, Kimball proved to be up to the task of going all the way, and she's thrilled.
"Teaching is a profession that is not really respected," Kimball said. "And it deserves the most respect."
An international relations major, Kimball recently returned to campus after spending her junior year abroad in Paris. While abroad, Kimball got a taste for teaching -something she used to do only when she was "pretending" with her little sister.
"In France, I was tutoring English to 10-year-olds and I volunteered at a local high school teaching English," Kimball said.
This past fall, Kimball heard about Teach for America from friends, and it seemed to be the right step for her to take. "Tufts is such a very aware school, but we don't learn much about the incredible poverty everywhere in America," she said.
Kimball applied to the program because she felt it was an opportunity for her to "give something back before going off."
But "giving back" is nothing new to Kimball. She is a former coordinator of the Leonard Carmichael Society Hunger Project, and now spends much of her time working for the Massachusetts branch of Campus Contact, a nationwide organization affiliated with AmeriCorps that fosters partnerships between universities and communities.
According to Kimball, her co-workers at Campus Contact were very encouraging during the Teach for America process. "[Campus Contact] offered to do mock interviews with me," Kimball said. "They were really supportive."
"Sarah is a student employee in our office, and has taken on significant leadership roles for our civic engagement programs," said Karley Ausiello, Campus Contact's Associate Director. "We have closely followed her journey as she went through the Teach for America application process and know it was extremely competitive this year."
Teach for America is by no means going to be a piece of cake, and Kimball is preparing herself for this challenge. "I'm trying not to be too na??ve about it - the [Teach for America] teachers work very hard," Kimball said. "But they are really enthusiastic!"
The program allowed applicants to specify the preferred regions where they would like to teach. Kimball was appointed to a rural area in the South, which is what she requested.
"I wanted a rural place because I'm from a rural place," said Kimball, referring to her hometown of Leicester, Vermont.
Kimball will be living in the same town as about 50 other Teach for America teachers, and she thinks that they will provide her with a great support group. This summer, Kimball and her fellow new teachers will undergo an intensive training session in Houston, Texas.
During this training, Kimball will be required to teach a summer school class where she will be critiqued by current faculty. At the beginning of the fall school year, Kimball will start teaching her own class, and she will be considered part of the faculty, receiving a regular teacher's salary.
Though she is unsure of where her career path will eventually lead her, Kimball is confident that she will benefit from this experience. "I definitely see myself being a part of this program for a really long time," Kimball said.
see the correction for this article
