CORI LOEW

During my four years at Middlebury College, I had tremendous opportunities to study abroad and travel to different countries around the world. After spending the first nineteen years of my life in the northeastern United States, studying World Geography was both exciting and interesting to me. Through Middlebury College, I was able to spend an intensive month in Havana, Cuba with two of my professors. In addition, I spent six months studying in Santiago, Chile, as an exchange student at the University of Chile. I also studied Mandarin Chinese and modern Hebrew at Middlebury, traveling to China in the spring of 2002. After graduating from Middlebury in February of 2003, I spent three months working in Salzburg, Austria for an international academic non-governmental organization called the Salzburg Seminar.

Sometime during my sophomore and junior years at Middlebury, I decided I wanted to become a teacher and I began to investigate alternative ways to teach in underprivileged public schools in the United States. I was immediately drawn to Teach for America because it allowed someone like myself without pedagogical training to become a public school teacher. However, the more I researched Teach for America and spoke to friends of mine who were currently in the program, the more I realized that teachers in TFA were largely thrown into nearly impossible situations with little support or training- essentially limiting their chances for success.

I was drawn to Teach Kentucky because it seemed to address the fundamental problems I recognized in the Teach for American Program. Teach Kentucky is committed to providing beginning teachers the necessary support system and pedagogical training essential to surviving the first year. In addition, because we are taking classes at the University of Louisville while we are teaching, after two years we will earn our Masters of Arts in Teaching, which is something very unique to Teach Kentucky. Finally, the support network from Teach Kentucky is extensive, with many mentors in the educational field and in the community to help us improve as teachers and help us integrate into Louisville. I would encourage anyone who is considering Teach for America to first look into Teach Kentucky, a much better alternative.