Q&A

What were some of the major lessons you learned during the corps?  



Humility is key. I think it is hands-down, the single most important lesson for any new teacher. With almost every single mistake I made in the first few years teaching, I can link those mistakes back to a pure lack of humility. One thing I was incredibly grateful for was the fact that that TFA’s leadership model allows for grace. I had a lot of coaches, supervisors, and mentors that gave me the gift of a whole heck of a lot of patience.



You have two ears and one mouth—use them in proportion. My Executive Director for my region said this the first day and it has served me well. By listening twice as much as I talk or act, I gain a much better understanding of the issues at hand and how I can be support and play a role in accomplishing equity for students.

What would you consider your biggest success as a teacher? What achievement are you most proud of?



One of my most successful moment with this was when I was in my second year of teaching. I recruited nearly 40 students to enroll in AP Statistics. It’s the highest number of AP math students my school had ever had, and I pulled tons of students that hadn’t taken an AP or Honors course in their entire life. I had students do a project at the end of the semester where they had to research something that they were interested in.

Two girls in my class researched teen pregnancy rates and wanted to see if there was a statistically significant difference between their parent’s generation and their generation of teen pregnancy. They were tired of hearing adults always telling them that their generation was messing up. So, they researched it and found that not only was there a statistically significant difference in teen pregnancy between the two generations, but it was a statistically significant decrease in their generation compared to the generation of their parents. I remember my students feeling so passionate about finding this out. They then researched the public health interventions that contributed to this. What was best about this was that these were two students I had struggled with in terms of relationship building all year. The fact that they were able to apply what they had learned in my class to something they cared about made such a huge difference in how we ended that year relationship wise.

Have you been able to utilize the TFA network after the corps? If so, how has it come into play?

The network is one of the most valuable things. Being around other folks who were oriented towards social justice has allowed me to fearlessly pursue that in my work back in academia. I constantly network with people I know from the Corps to work on my own identity development as well as how to navigate different offshoots of structural oppression I run into in my job on the day by day.

Was leaving the classroom a difficult decision to make?  

I don’t think I ever fully left the classroom at heart even though I physically left. I still toy around with going back to the classroom after my Ph.D. I could easily see myself teaching an AP Statistics course or a research design course at a high school. It would be amazing if I worked at a university that had some sort of high school bridge course like this. So, in some way, you could say that leaving the classroom has been an extremely difficult decision for me. It’s always going to be part of me and the work that I do.

It’s important for teachers to seek out and achieve personal goals they have set for themselves, though. I am staying in the world of education broadly, and taking time to get my Ph.D. and to recharge is what I needed to be the best I could be in addressing inequity.