Relentless Pursuit by Donna Foote Page A

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.
    Hrag felt like he had been sucker punched. Sure, TFA had said it would be hard. But no one had explained that it would be
this
difficult. Nobody had warned him that the job would take over his life and rob him of his youth.
What about the others? Why were they drawn to this Mission Impossible?
Two thousand had signed up with Hrag, and nearly nine times as many had applied. He knew why
he
could never quit. Why were the others still hanging in there?
    He couldn’t put his finger on it, but there was something about the people in TFA that set them apart. At first he thought it must be a religious thing. There seemed to be a lot of Mormons and Christians in the program. His roommate at institute had been a missionary. Dave Buehrle, a TFA English teacher assigned to Locke, was an unabashed Christian who had attended Calvin, a midwestern Christian college, and had stayed on a Christian missionary base while on a two-month internship in Hong Kong. Elissa Salas, a new special ed TFAer, had actually lived in a convent while doing social justice work in Washington, D.C., the previous summer.
    And there was Phillip Gedeon, the new TFA geometry phenom. Hrag didn’t know Phillip well, though they worked in the same wing on the third floor. Phillip, too, was a Christian. He believed it was his life’s work to teach—that God had ordained it. That certainty was one of the arguments Phillip presented to his single mother when he informed her that he was moving across the country to teach in Los Angeles. She didn’t like the idea of losing her only child, but it was hard to argue with God’s wishes. Back east, Phillip belonged to the Evangelical Covenant Church. In the early months at Locke, he sometimes traveled with other TFA Christians to area churches. He kept God