By most standards, GW alumnus Steve Khadam-Hir doesn't sound like a world-class hip-hop artist. But despite his lack of rapping skills, his beats are all the rage among fourth graders at Houston's Eleanor Tinsley Elementary School.
"You make an idiot of yourself in front of these kids, but they love it and think it's hilarious," said Khadam-Hir, who has tried to pique his students' interest in math by putting multiplication tables to raps. One of his most recent hits is a ditty about the number six to the tune of Beyonce's "Irreplaceable."
Khadam-Hir, who graduated last year, is one of the 111 GW graduates who have joined the ranks of Teach for America since 1999. The non-profit Teach for America seeks to eliminate educational inequality by putting the country's brightest college graduates to work as teachers in schools in low-income rural and urban communities.
This academic year, Khadam-Hir has been teaching science, social studies and writing at a school where about 95 percent of students qualify for the free lunch program.
"Any first year teacher will tell you it's the hardest year of your life," he said. "Coming in (without) an education background has definitely been difficult, just because there's so many aspects of teaching you don't get through the training Teach for America does give you." Students who work for Teach for America spend the summer at a five-week training program, called Institute, before working at schools full-time in the fall.
Khadam-Hir said the day-to-teach routine of teaching fourth graders is stressful because he often has to tell them to sit down and keep quiet, but he has no complaints about the TFA program itself. The real stress comes from school district politics.
"I'm only a first year teacher. You only get taken so seriously as a first year teacher," he said. "I had so many ideas and so many ways to better manage time … little things to change throughout our school to better our kids dramatically. I kind of just get pushed aside because I'm a first-year. All of them do."
"You make an idiot of yourself in front of these kids, but they love it and think it's hilarious," said Khadam-Hir, who has tried to pique his students' interest in math by putting multiplication tables to raps. One of his most recent hits is a ditty about the number six to the tune of Beyonce's "Irreplaceable."
Khadam-Hir, who graduated last year, is one of the 111 GW graduates who have joined the ranks of Teach for America since 1999. The non-profit Teach for America seeks to eliminate educational inequality by putting the country's brightest college graduates to work as teachers in schools in low-income rural and urban communities.
This academic year, Khadam-Hir has been teaching science, social studies and writing at a school where about 95 percent of students qualify for the free lunch program.
"Any first year teacher will tell you it's the hardest year of your life," he said. "Coming in (without) an education background has definitely been difficult, just because there's so many aspects of teaching you don't get through the training Teach for America does give you." Students who work for Teach for America spend the summer at a five-week training program, called Institute, before working at schools full-time in the fall.
Khadam-Hir said the day-to-teach routine of teaching fourth graders is stressful because he often has to tell them to sit down and keep quiet, but he has no complaints about the TFA program itself. The real stress comes from school district politics.
"I'm only a first year teacher. You only get taken so seriously as a first year teacher," he said. "I had so many ideas and so many ways to better manage time … little things to change throughout our school to better our kids dramatically. I kind of just get pushed aside because I'm a first-year. All of them do."
