Relentless Pursuit

by Donna Foote

  Hrag Hamalian, toting his lone suitcase, arrived at Teach For America’s summer institute dressed in a wife-beater T-shirt and shorts and thought: Wahoo! It’s L.A.! Days later, he was sitting in slacks and a dress shirt at the welcoming ceremony, astonished at the turn his life had taken. Hrag, along with the other corps members assigned to do their teacher training at Locke High School, had rehearsed a cheer for the evening. It was like a rap: Stop. Locke. Time to teach, Open up shop. He was surprised—and not a little embarrassed—to be rapping during institute, but that hardly prepared him for the spectacle that was unfolding in the auditorium of Wilson High School in Long Beach. The gathering of all 639 trainees felt like a football rally, or even a religious revival—not a meeting of smart and serious college graduates and soon-to-be professional teachers.

  For the welcoming ceremony, the L.A. institute corps was organized into groups, each representing a different training campus or permament-placement site. In they marched, bands of cheering coeds, each lot shouting louder than the last, until the noise was literally deafening. Standing in front, watching it all, stood Teach For America founder Wendy Kopp. Fifteen years before, she had presided at the first TFA institute just miles away. Corps members were clapping and chanting “TFA!…TFA!…TFA!” then, too. She had found the spontaneous enthusiasm disconcerting in 1990; the eardrum-piercing cheers and the near hysteria of 2005 were no less unsettling. She knew there was a fine line between exuberance and disillusionment. If she were a new CM, she mused, she would have been turned off. She wondered if others here felt the same way.

  She might as well have been reading Hrag’s mind. He didn’t feel plugged in to the crazy energy that emanated from the hall. He did absolutely believe in the central TFA dogma—that all children deserve an opportunity to attain an excellent education—and he was impressed with Wendy Kopp’s welcoming speech. When she stepped up to the podium, dressed in her customary well-tailored pantsuit, her long, light brown hair parted down the middle like a schoolgirl’s, the hall was dead quiet.

  Kopp’s remarks could have been mistaken for those of a commanding officer sending troops off to battle. She started by saluting the corps members for choosing to dedicate the next two years of their lives to teaching in underserved schools. “This has to be the road less traveled,” she said. “There had to be other options for you that were supported by family and friends.” Kopp went on to recite the dreary statistics underscoring the achievement gap between the richest and poorest students in the nation all along the education continuum. Among children in low-performing American schools, she said:

  • Fourth-graders read at a first-grade level.

  • Once they reach high school, there is only a 50 percent chance that they will graduate.

  • If they do graduate, they will leave school with the same skills as an eighth-grader.

  “Education is the key to having choices, well-paying jobs, and participating in a democracy,” Kopp said to a sea of upturned faces. “Our success depends on your remembering our fundamental purpose: to eliminate educational inequity. Your success depends on retaining a sense of outrage over those inequities. When you encounter your biggest challenges, remember the high stakes for your students. Remain centered on the fundamental purpose of Teach For America. Retaining a sense of purpose, outrage, and urgency is the foundation of creating a successful classroom.”

  Kopp reminded the recruits that the organization talks about teaching as leadership; that successful teachers possess the same skills and attributes as any effective leader. Then she suggested three things to help CMs center themselves in the coming months: “Really get to know your kids. Remind yourself constantly of the stakes. And take care of yourself.”

  Kopp’s address was the final speech of the evening. Earlier, Jason Kamras, a 1996 TFA alum who had just been named National Teacher of the Year, spoke of his transformative experience as a corps member. Next up was a patented TFA production in which five institute staff members stood in a row across a darkened stage, heads bowed. Suddenly, a single speaker stepped forward into a spotlight, head now raised, and began to read from a diary chronicling the personal travails and triumphs of a TFA recruit. The short but moving presentation, called a “spark” in TFA-speak, concluded with the refrain “Why I Teach For America.” When finished, the speaker faded back into the darkness and the light was trained on the next teacher, whose equally stirring testimonial also ended with the words “Why I Teach For America.” On it went until each bowed and darkened head had been illuminated, and each person had shared a personal epiphany that underscored the need and urgency of the battle—not to mention the quiet satisfaction attained from joining it.

  Hrag had found Wendy Kopp convincing. But the stage show was a bit too scripted, the canned “Why I Teach For America” mantra cheesy. He wasn’t the rah-rah type, and he thought the notion that as individuals they could revamp a broken education system was skewed. He surveyed the scene with growing dismay. What is going on? What am I doing here?

  Across the country in River Vale, New Jersey, Manuel Hamalian didn’t have to attend the welcoming ceremony to understand what his son, Hrag, was doing there. Manuel was the one who had opened the TFA acceptance envelope that Hrag received that spring. He had carefully read the contents and called his son to tell him the news that he was in. Hrag didn’t know if he would accept the offer, but he felt honored that it had been extended.

  “They recruit on merit,” Hrag had told his father. What he was really saying was: I am one of the elite.

  “That’s not it,” his father had countered, speaking as always in his native Armenian tongue. Manuel had emigrated from the Middle East nineteen years earlier, bringing with him his wife, Baizar, his aging parents, and his two small children, Gareen and Hrag. Manuel held a degree in public health from the American University of Beirut, but in United States he commuted four hours each day to his job as a manager of a freight forwarding company. Baizar, who went by the American name Claire, was a nurse; she worked the night shift at a local hospital. Together they literally labored around the clock. The kids were never denied. They had everything they needed, even the things the family couldn’t necessarily afford. Manuel’s parents, both refugees from the Armenian genocide of 1915, stayed at home and babysat.

  The Hamalians had high expectations for their children. They wanted them to find careers that would give them stability and security—and enable them to enjoy the pleasures of life that they themselves had often had to forgo. So far, the kids had not disappointed. Hrag was graduating from Boston College with a 3.56 GPA. Gareen had graduated from Columbia University and was attending Tufts School of Medicine.

  Gareen was well on her way. Hrag was not. Not yet, anyway. The Hamalians were mildly concerned. Manuel and Claire feared that a two-year stint with Teach For America could sidetrack their only son.

  So Manuel had not shared Hrag’s enthusiasm about the TFA acceptance letter. He was cautious, and he wanted his son to be, too. “They are really judging you on your character,” Manuel had told Hrag over the phone. “They’re looking for your type of person—someone who will make a commitment and not leave it.”

  Hrag had felt his anger rising. His parents had always been sparing in their praise. He had just won a spot in one of the most prestigious post-grad programs in the country. Only a few of the eleven who interviewed with him had been offered a position. Everyone else knows Teach For America looks for the highest-achieving graduates. Why can’t you see that?

  Manuel had kept on repeating: “They judge you by your character. I went through [the acceptance packet]. Nothing shows me you got accepted for achievement. You got accepted because you’re not gonna leave.”

  Hrag first heard about the organization in high school when a TFA alum addressed his class. It sounded cool. He didn’t really think about it again until his senior year at BC, when he had to decide what to do after graduation. TFA had sent him a personalized e-mail listing his accomplishments and inviting him
to apply. At first it creeped him out—the idea that someone he didn’t know knew him. But he was flattered, too—and curious. So he agreed to meet for coffee, and afterward the e-mails kept coming. There was no obvious career path ahead for Hrag, no law school, med school, or MBA program in his immediate future. He just knew he wanted to do something that he would enjoy. And if he was going to have to work hard all day, he wanted to have something to show for it when he came home at night. Gareen offered to arrange a meeting for Hrag with her friend Seth, who had just completed his TFA commitment. Seth had only positive things to say about the experience, though he did admit that during his first year he sometimes came home crying. Hrag was unfazed. Well, that’s not me. My first year will be hard; my second will be better. All in all it’ll be such a great experience.

  Hrag applied and was invited to interview. The daylong process was scheduled for April 1—April Fools’ Day. He knew it would be intense. Applicants were required to prepare and deliver a five-minute lesson plan. They had been sent reading material on educational issues in preparation for a group discussion and a one-on-one interview. Role-playing and problem-solving exercises were also on the agenda.

  TFA made no secret of the seven attributes it was seeking in prospective corps members. Everything was posted on its increasingly sophisticated website and included in the mailings. But Hrag and the others had no way of knowing which combination of traits unlocked the door.

  Hrag didn’t spend much time worrying about it. He had been on several other interviews already, and he actually enjoyed the process. He was nimble, good on his feet; he liked showing folks what he could do. So he went in with a game plan designed to give TFA what it was looking for. He carefully prepared his mini-lesson. Hrag asked one of his favorite professors, Dr. Krauss, for help in adapting one of his particularly memorable lectures on evolution into a five-minute presentation. The night before his interview, Hrag staged a dry run of the suitably dumbed-down lesson using members of BC’s Armenian Club as guinea pigs.

  Hrag arrived at Boston’s Prudential Center in a suit and tie. TFA selectors watched as each applicant delivered a lesson to the entire group. Hrag came armed for his with fifty colored plastic dinosaurs and a raft of photocopied handouts. The dinosaurs went flying when he simulated the crash of a meteor by pounding his fist on a desk. The dramatics effectively illustrated his point: in the event of a natural disaster, the animals with the broadest niche were most likely to survive. As he stuffed the toys back into a brown paper bag, he reckoned he had nailed the teaching exercise. Everyone else in the room appeared to think so, too.

  As part of the initial application, candidates had been asked to write an essay describing a time when they were faced with a serious obstacle. Hrag had written about the summer he spent in Datev, a “Third World village tucked away in a forgotten corner of Armenia.” Hrag and Gareen had traveled there on a service project sponsored by their local Armenian club. Though their parents weren’t born in Armenia—Manuel was born in Syria, Claire in Lebanon—both were Armenian patriots. In America, the Hamalians had clung to the cultural roots of a country they themselves had never seen. Their social life revolved around the Armenian community in the greater New York area and their extended families that had settled there. Hrag and Gareen had grown up on their paternal grandfather’s tales of the old country he had been forced to flee. The children were proud to be Armenian and thrilled to be able to visit their country to help rebuild a school there.

  “Armenia was my homeland,” Hrag wrote, “and no matter how far I was distanced from it as a result of the Diaspora of my people, I was determined to reconcile myself with it.” He went on to tell the story of how he won over hostile Armenian villagers who seemed to resent the noblesse oblige of the visiting Armenian Americans. The breakthrough came when Hrag sent a stray soccer ball soaring over the heads of the young kids playing near the construction site. The children mobbed him for his amazing feat; before long, their parents were inviting him to dinner.

  The TFA selector reading the essay drew brackets around the paragraphs outlining Hrag’s success at winning over the villagers. Next to the brackets was the notation “I/M,” TFA shorthand for “influencing and motivating others,” one of the key competencies TFA had identified with the help of McKinsey consultants.

  At one point in the seven-hour process, the candidates were split into two groups for a discussion based on readings the applicants had been sent. Hrag hadn’t studied the articles; he scanned them even as he led the discussion. He didn’t really know what he was talking about. What he did know was that TFA interviewers were watching the group to see who would step up and lead the conversation.

  During the one-on-one interview, Hrag emphasized his leadership qualities. He spoke about the growth and success of the Armenian Club at Boston College under his stewardship. When he had first arrived at BC, the club was just about moribund. Because the club had only four members, getting himself elected president was easy. The hard part was finding a way to revive the organization. Hrag decided to scan the names of all the students on campus and e-mail the ones with names ending in “ian.” The plan worked. Enrollment jumped to fifteen. With the club showing signs of life, Hrag started holding events on topics he thought would be of interest to Armenian Americans. He then convinced professors to give extra credit to anyone who showed up. The night before Hrag’s interview, seventy people attended the club meeting and lecture, a number unheard of before his tenure.

  Hrag had also gleaned that the organization put a premium on persistence. TFA called it relentless pursuit. It was the first of the organization’s five core values. After all, TFA owed its existence to the fact that Kopp had persisted against all manner of seemingly insurmountable odds, especially in the first five years.

  Hrag knew all about persistence. At Boston College, he had taken his GPA from a 3.18 as a freshman to a 3.78 as a junior. Before that, his career as a high school wrestler at Pascack Valley High School in Hillsdale, New Jersey, was an ode to persistence. The tale said as much about his father as it did about Hrag.

  Hrag made it onto the varsity wrestling team as a sophomore, but he never won a single match that year. His father didn’t care. He made it a point to attend every match. And through every one of them, Manuel silently endured the reproaches of another dad seated nearby—a father whose son actually won some matches. “Yank the kid,” the guy would say. “It’s embarrassing—to the boy as well as the team. You’re hurting your own kid. Stop. It’s painful to watch.”

  Manuel never responded.

  Then, in what seemed nothing short of a miracle, Hrag took on the school’s rival in his junior year—and won! And kept winning. In his senior year, he was ranked second in the league.

  Hrag’s first victory came in the only match of his wrestling career that Manuel wasn’t able to make. It didn’t matter. That night, when he arrived home and heard the news, Manuel heaved his teenaged son atop his shoulders and paraded him around the house like a Greek god. Hrag savored that moment as much as the victory.

  The TFA staffers handling the interview process that day kept a score sheet for each applicant. Candidates were rated on the seven competencies along a sliding scale of 1 to 3, with 1 signifying an unacceptably low score, 2 indicating a solid performance, and 3 representing exemplary, the highest possible rating. Each score on each trait for each candidate was carefully entered, first on the work sheet, later into TFA’s burgeoning computerized data bank.

  At the end of the day, Hrag was tagged a “Best Bet,” a candidate who had not met one of the six computer profiles that were predictive of success but who had shown great potential. On Hrag’s documents, an obviously frustrated selector had asked that his application be reviewed, noting, “I feel like the rubric is not allowing me to select someone who I think might make a great corps member.” After a “selection check” by headquarters, TFA “decided to admit on a BB b/c of strong PR spike.” Translation: Hrag was accepted to the corps as a “Best
Bet” because of his strong score on perseverance.

  Even after he was accepted by TFA, Hrag continued to go on other interviews. But as the school year came to a close, he realized that all the other positions seemed like glorified sales jobs. TFA was different. It offered Hrag an opportunity to do something good, to be in a position of power, and to feel proud about what he was doing. He signed up and asked to be sent to the West Coast. He was assigned to Los Angeles, close to Huntington Beach, the first place the Hamalians had lived after immigrating to the United States nearly two decades before. It all seemed to click. He bought a plane ticket, packed a bag, and flew west.

  Hrag never saw the paperwork, but by early fall he begrudgingly acknowledged what Manuel Hamalian, in his fatherly wisdom, had known all along. Hrag had certainly shown leadership abilities, but it was his relentless pursuit of his goals—academic, athletic, and Armenian—that had tipped the scales in his favor. When Teach For America extended an offer to Hrag, they knew he was a keeper. He would never quit.

  Hrag turned his anger on himself. Why hadn’t he seen all this back then, in the beginning, before he had made a two-year commitment? He hated the fact that TFA—and his dad—knew right from the start what he had only recently come to understand. Though the thought of leaving had been on his mind since the very first day of school, quitting wasn’t an option for a person like Hrag. If he left, he knew he would feel like a failure for the rest of his life. Besides, in the Hamalian family, there was no failing—not like that, anyway.