Sevcan is 23 years old. She grew up in Hatay, Turkey, a rare place in the Middle East where mosques, churches and synagogues coexist. Jamie is 25 years old and grew up in suburban Chicago. Sevcan and Jamie have never met, but they share a love of English literature and a desire to improve lives through education. Their divergent career paths point to differences in the way that Turkey and the United States prepare recent graduates for careers in the classroom.
A thoughtful, studious young woman, Sevcan was a top student in the English department at Karadeniz Technical University, a well-regarded Turkish institution on the coast of the Black Sea. She has already been offered a teaching position beginning this September. Sevcan has deep respect for Turkish history and says that her “heart still beats harder” when she reads stories of the Ottoman Empire’s decline. Yet, she is simultaneously open-minded and seeks an international perspective. She practices Arabic to communicate with her aging grandparents. She studied abroad in Germany and is currently in Arkansas participating in the Teaching Excellence and Achievement Program (TEA) [14], a program of the U.S. Department of State and administered by IREX.
Like Sevcan, Jamie was a top student in her college’s English department. After graduating, she joined the Philadelphia Teaching Fellows [15], a spin-off of the popular Teach for America program. TFA, as it is commonly known, is the venture started by Wendy Kopp that puts young graduates—who are highly accomplished students but often have little formal training in pedagogy— in the classroom for two years. Jamie taught seventh grade English in West Philadelphia until 2009. She has since enrolled in law school and plans to pursue a career defending the same type of troubled kids she encountered in her classroom.
Unlike their American counterparts who join TFA, Sevcan and other Turkish pre-service teachers have been studying education theory for years. In Turkey, like in most of the rest of the world, the education system funnels students towards particular vocations at an early age. Sevcan and her peers have committed to a lifelong career as teachers and were surprised to hear that young American educators sometimes go on to become lawyers or policymakers or doctors.
Of course the majority of American teachers still enter the profession through traditional certification routes. Yet, alternative programs such as Teach for America and urban Teaching Fellows are gaining increasing traction and prestige in this country. While the education and career paths of young Turkish and American teachers like Sevcan and Jamie may diverge, their shared idealism and fresh perspectives both move schools and systems forward in positive ways.
Amy Ahearn [16] is a Program Associate at IREX