The graduation ceremony is over and it begins: the outpouring of cover letters and resumes, all variations on the classic “hire me!” plea. For college graduates, a sense of urgency sets in – a need to get as swift a head start as possible in the competitive, professional world. But that entry-level, low-paying job is not your only option. Teach for America offers students the opportunity to take two years of their life and dedicate them to educating the youth of our most challenging and underprivileged public schools. A program that recruits only the most excellent in academic standing, Teach for America targets the future politicians, lawyers, doctors, and scientists of our nation. They offer the opportunity to give back to our country and communities in the form of an extremely difficult, yet rewarding experience.

Biola graduate Jeremy Mann (’08), heard about Teach for America over Christmas break last year. As a philosophy major, Mann had not initially planned to teach, but found this to be an opportunity too good to pass up. Mann was accepted to the program and currently teaches special education math at Johnnie L. Cochran Middle School in Echo Park, Los Angeles.

In their first year of marriage, Jeremy and his wife, Erin, moved to Los Angeles to live closer to Jeremy’s place of work. Erin commutes to Biola to finish her nursing degree. Though this isn’t easy, they consider it a joy to be part of Teach for America’s mission.

“We both feel really drawn to this population and drawn to this problem,” said Erin. “Teach for America is an incredible organization, and they’ve been really supportive to us.”

Mann made no effort to mask the initial difficulty of exploring this new and unfamiliar territory.

“You haven’t been trained to be a teacher,” he said. “You’re working in the worst schools in America. You are expected to advance your kids through way more than classes of even pretty good schools. You are going to be going to grad school at the same time. You are going to be removed from your comfy, cozy Biola existence … all sorts of things like that. It’s just really hard. It’s been good, but it’s really hard.”

Because so many people who join Teach for America are not trained in education, they must attain a teaching credential and go through a master’s program while teaching in the inner city schools. The organization promises to walk with students through every step of the process and offer support, encouragement and community. Mann’s program director visits his classroom roughly once a month and gives concrete advice and feedback on Mann’s teaching, which proves immensely valuable to him. Though Mann receives critiques from many people, the director’s input is always “straight to the issue,” and very helpful.

Mann finds that his students challenge him every day, as he reacts to their situations and the difficulties that they face.

“They hate school, hate everyone else, are totally violent, totally dysfunctional, grades and grades behind where everyone should be, and so, it’s just like guerilla warfare,” Mann said. “It’s gnarly, every day.”

Gnarly though it may be, Mann relishes the challenge. He enjoys being pushed to – and beyond – his limits, and knowing that he can extend that mentality to his students.

“I’m not just trying to be their buddy,” he said. “I’m trying to push them to learn things that they don’t know right now. … It’s not like, let’s just hold hands and sing ‘Kumbaya.’ It feels like work, for them and for me. But I kind of like that.”

Though typecast as a more liberal organization, Teach for America has recently targeted Christian colleges for recruitment.

“They find that there’s really good alignment of mission and values of the [Christian] students’ lives with what they do,” Mann said. “They’re interested in having more students from places like Biola.”

Though he cautions that this is not something to enter into lightly, Mann encourages Biola students to apply. With a very selective application process, there is no guarantee that Teach for America will accept the average student, but this is exactly the kind of program that Biola students should be getting excited about.

“It’s disappointing to see Biola students who are really well prepared for the future and really poised to make significant impact on the world and then go do fairly wussy things,” Mann said. “There needs to be a sense of urgency and Christian ambition that I don’t think a lot of students have. It’s the sort of challenge I think people should sign up for.”

Teach for America offers a unique opportunity for young people to affect students, and subsequently the world, in a huge way. For Biola graduates, individuals committed to making a difference for Christ, this may be the perfect opportunity.