Synthesis

Pursuing a Master’s Degree was not something I contemplated much until my move back to Michigan. I had been teaching in an elementary school district in the West Valley of Phoenix for four years. My students produced stellar learning growth; I had a few prestigious awards under my belt and I was confident in my teaching abilities. I knew that I would attend grad school at some point in my career, but I never felt pressured nor desired to enroll in any classes during that time. School isn’t something that comes easy for me. I enjoy it, no doubt, but it can be a struggle. The thought of returning to school after graduating just a few years prior made me anxious, so I pushed the idea aside. My time in Arizona wasn’t easy, but it was extremely rewarding. In the beginning, I struggled to navigate my new career, which looked far different than what I had envisioned during college. I believe it was my supportive colleagues and beyond supportive superintendent that propelled me towards my successful teaching career.

In 2016, I moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan, where I have been teaching now for five years. I quickly realized that much of what I knew about teaching needed to be modified in order to best support my new group of students. I had never encountered so many roadblocks while trying to teach young scholars. So many roadblocks, in fact, that I began to question my desire to be a teacher at all. I felt extremely disappointed in myself. My students were no longer scoring at the top, not even close. I was met with a whole new set of norms, and my ideas about what education should be were thrown out the window. In many ways, I had to learn how to be a teacher all over again. It finally felt like the right time to continue my education. I had narrowed down different passions and chose to focus on literacy education. I applied to Michigan State University and began my program in 2019. My purpose, as a whole, for returning to school, was to simply refine my teaching practice. I was beginning to feel that teacher burnout, but I didn’t want to give up so easily. I am meant to be an educator; I’ve never pictured myself in any other profession. I was hoping grad school would reignite the creativity and passion I was losing, and as I reflect on the last two years, I’d say it was a success. Because of my journey through the Master of Arts in Education (MAED) program at Michigan State University (MSU), I feel that I am more qualified to teach any group of students who may walk through my door.

One of the first classes I enrolled in at the beginning of my MAED program in 2019, was a course titled Awards and Classics of Children’s Literature. This class is one that immediately caught my eye. I was intrigued partly because the focus of my degree is literacy instruction, but mostly because the instructor was Laura Apol, who was named poet-laureate for the Lansing area in May 2019. I was inspired to learn about children’s literature from someone who had such a rich background in teaching, writing, and publishing. What I imagined this course to be was actually far from what it really was, but for the better; let me explain. The course description states very plainly that students will conduct a critical examination of literary classics and award books for children, including children’s responses to this literature. I had convinced myself that I was going to spend the summer reading children’s books and analyzing their many reasons for earning different awards. While this was partly true, I felt more connected and intrigued by a module devoted to diversity in children’s literature, specifically, than any of the awards we studied. The class took a left turn, towards a direction I had never imagined. We started the module by considering the social and political implications and designations of what is considered “best” in children’s literature. I examined the different criteria that is necessary for books to receive different awards and be deemed “best” in their category. The whole process started looking a bit grim to me, as I soon realized that the people who were choosing the “best” books, were mostly white males. Let me pause here, and share the demographics of my school. It is a charter school in southeast Grand Rapids that serves children in kindergarten through eighth grade. It’s a school that has a high teacher-turnover rate, large class sizes, and scores that are well below state averages. 78% of the student population is African-American. 94% come from low-income families, and 100% receive free breakfast and lunch. My class this past year was made of 32 students—six of whom were performing at/above grade level and fifteen who were performing two grade levels or more below. So when we began talking about the lack of multicultural literature for children, it was easy for me to reflect on my own classroom. At the conclusion of this class I had many donors in place who were going to help me extend my classroom library to be more diverse, specifically to include more books with African American characters.

I’ve noticed a trend throughout undergrad and now grad school, that the classes I struggle with the most are the ones I enjoy the best. There are two classes that I thought were so difficult, I considered dropping them entirely, but I am so relieved that I did not. CEP 800, Psychology of Learning in School and Other Settings happens to be one of those courses. My love-hate relationship with this course can be strictly blamed on COVID-19 and the shutdown of our entire state, as I enrolled in the class in the spring of 2020. It was such an odd time to be taking classes and thinking about such a seemingly straightforward question such as What is Learning? We studied all aspects of learning from individual learners, learning tools, assessing learning, and the social aspects of learning. We explored learning habits and how difficult they can be to correct. This lesson was especially noteworthy because it gave me a new perspective on why some of my students are the way they are. It helped ease some of my frustrations and anxiety about feeling like my teaching was inadequate because my students still acted as though it was their first day, everyday! In addition, it required me to look into my own habits and consider how difficult it can be to change something that has always been. We focused on creating new habits and connected that to encouraging new habits in our students; it is a process. What was the most difficult task, however, but the most rewarding, was creating a personal theory of learning. (Please see my Showcase page for the complete assignment.) As an educator, it’s easy for me to get distracted by the amount of standards I need to cover and the lessons I need to deliver. It can be so overwhelming at times that I forget what the driving force of my lessons are, and that is the students. Creating a personal theory of learning encouraged me to depart from the teaching perspective and focus on how learning happens best.

When I reflect on the courses I took in my MAED program, there is one more that truly left an impression on me as a professional, and in turn, on my teaching. ED 800, Concepts of Educational Theory is a foundational course that is to be taken within the first few semesters of your masters program. It is a course that was thought provoking and that focused on essential questions surrounding education. What is most worth knowing and how are individual, institutional, and social views of school and the curriculum connected? We engaged in several types of inquiry to reflect on how contemporary life and globalization influence education. As a participant observer, I watched the movie Whale Rider through an entirely different lens than I had before. This turned into one of my most favorite assignments, because unless I am asked to-- or don’t have anything else going on, which is rare-- I hardly ever sit back and observe the atmosphere around me. I picked a scene from the movie and watched it over and over again, noticing new things each time. I imagined myself as a member of the Māori tribe, on the island of Whangara, with Pai and Paka. I observed each one’s actions and body language, how each one could change in a moment. I realized that if I spent more time as an observer of my own students, I could learn about them in the same beneficial way I learned about Pai and Paka. Allowing myself time to observe and reflect on what I see can lead to a greater understanding of my students, which may require a change in the ways I teach. The process of observing is beneficial for me in a couple different ways and I would like to make it a regular practice of mine, not just in my own classroom but in my colleagues rooms as well. It is easy to get consumed in my own teaching and in my own space, that I neglect really good (or not so good) things that may be happening around me.

It is a bit surreal that I will complete my graduate program in just a few short weeks. It seems as though I just started and I am eager now, more than ever, to continue my career in education. What is unique about teachers is that we will always be learners first. There are an infinite number of professional developments and trainings to attend, and my wish is to never grow tired of attending each of them. At the bottom of every email one of my colleagues writes, is a quote from Loretta Lynn. It says, “You’ve got to continue to grow, or you’re just like last night’s cornbread-- stale and dry.” Although Loretta is a singer/songwriter of country music and not an educator at all, it is a quote that resonates in me. I don’t ever wish to be compared to stale cornbread, nor do I ever want to get to a point where I think I know it all. Education is continually evolving and in order to have a positive impact on my students, I will continue to evolve as well. My time spent with Michigan State University has done precisely what I hoped it would do. I feel inspired, even in the midst of a continuing global pandemic. I feel more knowledgeable in my craft and know that I am an effective educator because I put my students first.