For application to the Ph.D. Program at the University of Rochester I was required to write a personal statement about my life, history, story, narrative...whatever you want to call it. Below is that personal narrative.
There has never been a point in my life that I have not been a learner. As a toddler, my two working parents enrolled me in a day care at a Mennonite church in my hometown in Pennsylvania. The teachers encouraged me to thrive and gain independence in my learning styles and interests. Every day I created things that were nothing more than an opportunity for me to explore, observe, and create. This small learning center was the catalyst that ignited my desire to learn and teach.
With two young, inexperienced parents trying to stay afloat financially, I have no recollection of sitting and having them read to me. Still I learned to love books. Craving the pictures, colors, and stories I read everything I could. I looked forward to my daily visits with Ferdinand the Bull and Frog and Toad. At four years old, I was enthralled with words. This love of learning continued through my time in public school
As I was entering junior high, our family relocated to a small town just outside of Ithaca NY. I embraced the change – a new start, new friends, new experiences. I entered the school knowing only one other student, but by the end of the first month I had been voted class treasurer. I held that office every year while in Newfield. It was here that I met my mentor and role model who left an everlasting impression on me.
Mrs. Pung was my English teacher and she believed in teaching more than stories, grammar, and sentence structure. She believed in teaching life. Pushing me to develop as a free thinker, I began to strive for more than what I had. I had no idea that many years down the road I would have the chance to employ this life philosophy in my own classroom.
I pushed myself academically and enjoyed questioning areas not traditionally discussed in school. While my peers wrote senior theses on standard topics like teen drug use and pregnancy, I explored whether homosexuality was biological or social. I was ready for more academic challenge.
During the second semester of my sophomore year at Penn State I declared my major in Health Education. Realistically it made sense to obtain my certification in school health, but I had no intent or desire of teach.
After working as an educator and programmer in the field of substance use prevention and education, I became frustrated with the public health climate and the politics that drove the decision making process. I needed a new focus so I lunged at the opportunity to become part of a team to help develop 21st Century Community Learning Centers throughout Cattaraugus and Allegany Counties. Based on the work of Dr. Mel Levine we modeled our programs around the Schools Attuned philosophy. Our centers served students considered to be “puzzles.” Theoretically they should have been succeeding, but realistically they were falling through the cracks academically and socially. The centers became a place where students could safely explore how they learned without the pressure of being evaluated. Using neurodevelopmental profiles extracted from a comprehensive compilation of information from teachers, parents, and students we empowered kids to actually learn about how they learned. Students became active participants in the learning process. As I watched middle school social misfits and labeled classroom distractions develop positive relationships with peers and surprise their day teachers by succeeding in the classroom, I realized I had found my niche.
Soon after beginning my work with the 21st Century Community Learning Centers, I became an alternative GED teacher at the Belmont Center of Cattaraugus-Allegany BOCES. Having only managed a classroom as a student teacher, I was scared to death. Entering the room I faced frustrated young adults attending the alternative GED program as a last resort. As I began to build relationships with my students a common thread emerged: schools had failed them. Somewhere along the way the system had rejected them as learners, unable or unwilling to take the time to explore how they learned instead just expecting them to learn.
I was challenged. Every day presented new opportunities for quick thinking, never knowing what was going to happen or who was going to show up for class. Emotions ran high and tensions were apparent among peers and toward the adults in the classroom. Building and maintaining appropriate relationships became a continuous lesson. Convincing my students to trust me as an educator was no small task. I embraced the creativity that so many teachers had considered a nuisance in the classroom and I listened to their ideas and views. It was at this time I realized I could give to these students what Mrs. Pung had given me – expectations that each of them would succeed at something. It was okay for them to have aspirations of becoming a tattoo artist or a truck driver. A few even began to believe they could attend college.
I was not the kind of GED educator regularly found at the school. Having a teacher read out loud to a class for an hour was not something to which the school was accustomed. Students had been expected to increase their literacy by completing packets of worksheets. This approach hadn’t worked in the past. What made administrators’ think GED reading packets would suddenly be the magic answer?
As we incubated eggs in our classroom, the students became excited to candle the developing embryos. At hatching time, I saw students become calm and focused. Sitting during a lunch break, one aggressive student attempted to help a struggling chick from its shell. Carefully and methodically he picked away at the shell. He didn’t care whether the chick lived or died, but he knew that trying to help the chick was important to me. I felt success in knowing that I had created positive relationships between an educator and distrusting students, but even more importantly I had shown them that learning didn’t have to be painful.
Abandoning traditional pedagogy, my students and I would spend the afternoons learning about latitude and longitude with GPS units or sit around the pond discussing “The Call of the Wild.” As I moved further away from math worksheets, tensions grew between the lead GED teacher and me because of our polar philosophies. After a little over a year of teaching alternative GED, I made the difficult decision to leave.
When I began my stint as a middle school health teacher, it was not unusual to receive phone calls in the middle of the day from my GED students, filling me in on what was happening at school or asking for general advice about life. More than once I was rewarded by students dropping by my classroom to share their GED scores or to tell me that they had found a job. I felt pride in having been a part of their journey.
Although I resisted becoming an educator it is where I have found success. I have gained innumerable life lessons, bits of wisdom, and memories that will forever have an imprint on my life. I have learned more from my students than I will ever teach. As my road to formally becoming an educator winds and curves, my passion for working with students who are considered puzzles and misfits continues to flourish. Why do these students not succeed? Why is it so easy for some learners to succeed, but not others even when given the same content and structure?
I am a champion for the student. I believe in the promise of a young person who does not learn in a traditional classroom, but excels when given the tools to succeed. Teachers have the responsibility to make these strategies accessible to all students and to help develop the whole person. My interest lies in exploring how schools can effectively create learning environments that better develop resiliency and help all students meet higher achievement through attainable expectations.
Education is my most prized possession. Still the only four-year college graduate in my large extended family, I am not content to stop. Just as the school stifles students who do not learn in a traditional manner, it also hampers teachers who don’t teach using traditional methods. Effective teachers are lost due to the constraints and implied norms of teaching students in rows to prepare for state assessments. I consider myself one of those teachers. There is a clear disconnect between how so many of our students learn and how our schools teach. Helping students develop as citizens has direct implications for future opportunities. If we do not offer learning environments that position all students to succeed, we do not encourage our young people to realize their potential.
The Warner School’s Human Development in Educational Contexts program provides an opportunity for the combines my affinities, strengths, and convictions. Because of my training as an health educator it is natural for me to examine issues in a multifaceted manner including social, familial, historical, and psychological perspectives. Through my time as a facilitator in alternative and after school settings, it became clear to me that school environments shape personal development in both positive and negative ways. Social development is as present as academic progress and often overshadows scholastic achievement. I want to be a part of examining how educational environments can encourage to students thrive and grow. Educational systems should be structured in a way that ensures that every student succeeds, even when learners in the same classroom have different neurodevelopmental strengths or weaknesses.
I believe admission to the Warner School’s Ph.D. program in Human Development in Educational Contexts is a perfect fit for my past experiences and future goals. I did not intend to become an educator, but from the time I was a kid at the Mennonite day care it has been intrinsic to me. It would be an honor to attend a school with such a strong reputation and dedication to education and professional preparation. I look forward to continuing my journey as a learner at the University of Rochester.
