Educational+Vision

Educational Vision

I believe a good question to begin with is: How did I get here? I know that my values and beliefs have provided a solid foundation for my current and future goals. However, I had attended college with plans of pursuing a career in public health at Johns Hopkins University. But during my time at Johns Hopkins, I enrolled in a summer teaching program, which totally changed my career path. My calling to school leadership may not have sent me down a common path (as you are about to see); however, the journey I took to reach my destination has guided and molded my views and beliefs on education. It is through these experiences that a passion for positive change has been stirred up in me. During my studies at Johns Hopkins, I took the opportunity to participate in the Teach Baltimore program, a program designed to address the need for inner city youth to continue to have academic reinforcement in order to combat the “summertime slide” of regressing to remedial learning achievements in comparison to their suburban counterparts. In this internship, I had the opportunity to teach 1st and 3rd grade over two summers. Through my initial teaching experiences, I fell in love with working with students. I do recall a bit of foreshadowing, however; at this early experience in my life, I would regularly step out of the room when my partner teacher was working, and I would walk around and check in on the other grade levels being served at the school. I would observe how the other interns were teaching and, if possible, provide feedback to benefit both my colleague and the students. I continued to work on maintaining positive relationships with these peers, and many of them decided to serve a second term along with me in the summer. Although I had enjoyed my time in the Teach Baltimore program, being able to stay in Baltimore during those two summer terms was not enough to fulfill my need to work with students on a more consistent basis. After expressing this to my internship and academic advisor, I was recommended to apply for the Teach for America program. Teach for America was an entirely fresh and intense experience. (I think “intense” may even be an understatement.) Teach for America has set an established vision and mindset of what the organization wants to see in the U.S. educational arena and how to get there, and they are going to make sure that the teachers they choose to participate in the organization are equipped in the training they believe will prepare teachers.Even during the “Interview Day” I was given a brand new perspective concerning the rigors of education and teaching. Going from a setting where resources were handed to you in Teach Baltimore to a program where the instructional staff directed and coached you on how to develop your own resources was an entirely new mindset. Upon getting into the program, I was faced with a bold new realization: I’m a teacher. That title can be so misleading in today’s society. Teachers are not expected to simply teach: they are counselors, facilitators, nurses, therapists, mother and father figures, IT technicians. They are expected to model behaviors, problem-solve situations, be information analystsand sometimes the only person who will listen or try to understand. They are expected to work with others to generate new, creative, and engaging ways of learning. They are expected to stay up-to-date on the new advancements in technology and incorporate these skills into their everyday lessons. They are expected to treat all students fairly and to provide for the needs of our diverse learners. They are expected to be life-long learners. Undoubtedly, the aforementioned qualities and expectations can be overwhelming. Teachers are also faced with many additional stressors that can merge into one another and that do not even involve these expectations, such as discipline referrals and legal “alphabet soup” paperwork (504 plans, IEPs, PEPs, PGPs, SIPs, PDPs, etc.) However, I have embraced two major principles during my time in Teach for America and through serving the Nash-Rocky Mount school system: “It’s all about relationships” and “Learn to adapt”. I have come to realize that these two principles, although subtle, speak volumes with all stakeholders that invest in the school. I first refined my relationship skills as a student worker in the JHU Career Center. I learned many things in over my four years in that office, but learning how to be truly committed to your customer was one of the most vital. I also renewed my sense of humility while working at the Career Center. I retrospectively realized that I had set my own goals and aspirations aside, so that I could help serve others in reaching theirs. I believe that is so important in education: realizing it is not about us (the educators), but it is about our customers (the students). I appreciate the term “student-centered” in an entirely new light now, which ties into the next principle. I have realized that we must learn how to adapt, which is easier said than done. When I stepped into my first official teaching job I taught four different content areas within the first two years of my young career. Learning to adapt doesn’t just mean coping with change; it extends to stretching oneself to be a lifelong learner, because the world around us is constantly changing. A mindset that I believe we in education must continue to embrace is that we are preparing our students for “their” future, not ours. Therefore, in order to accomplish this mission, we must be up-to-date with the skills and resources required for this 21st century. We must step out of our routines and comfort zones and challenge and engage students with different learning strategies and technology tools. Our students need to learn more than how to type or use a graphing calculator. Our students have more advanced tools on their phones today. However, the key question remains: to what extent are the students properly using the resources available to them? If we do not teach them how to use more effective technology and skills, besides Facebook and Twitter, then our students will not embrace them or discover these things on their own. We must embrace the mindset of being uncomfortable and continue to learn ourselves. As aforementioned, my path to school leadership was not a common journey, but my experience in career services and public health have provided me with unique tools that will allow me to serve people in different ways. I may not know all there is to know about leadership, hence why I still need to learn to adapt. My pastor has said time and again that favor is getting the right people to like you: building relationships. Therefore, the things I am weaker in I can rely on someone to assist or teach me. I am a lifelong learner and I challenge all those that have taken the challenge of educating our students to be lifelong learners as well. Even through all the additional stressors and duties a job in education demands, our jobs are too important to ever think that we have reached a state of satisfaction. The futures of so many lay in our hands, and I want to be there to help lead the way on this never-ending journey.