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I parked my car, grabbed my students’ essays that I had graded the night before, and walked toward Franklin High School in the Stockton Unified School District. One of the students caught my attention and queried,
Are you a teacher or a kid?
Although I was perhaps only two or three years older than some of the seniors, I paused and considered, and then smiled and replied,
I am a teacher.
As I entered the school, I headed towards my classroom, where I taught five courses daily. Back then, the teacher whose classes I had taken on the first day of the fall term, was called my Master Teacher. Mr. Smith was the teacher of record, but his support consisted of providing me with the names of the classes and an occasional drop-in to complete the mandatory observations my university required.
That was the sum of my student teaching experience—a baptism by fire in an urban high school in which, remarkably, despite a lack of “adult supervision” I thrived. I loved the students and the opportunity to help many overcome years of reading, writing, and language challenges or to discover a love of poetry, the novel, and one’s own prose. They came to trust me with their stories, which many times wilted my soul, and many times brightened my spirits.
Undaunted by the limited mentorship, I somehow managed to continue to pursue my passion and officially enter the teaching profession with my own classroom the following autumn.
University teacher preparation programs today bear little resemblance to my halting beginnings, and I am proud to say that Channel Islands School of Education offers robust and relevant programs that do support educators. Additionally, future teachers have several choices to support their journeys and our CI faculty and staff pride themselves in offering several, high quality pathways to teaching. If a teacher candidate is accepted into our School of Education, for example, many can elect to apply to a Residency Program.
Residents join their schools in the fall when teachers return to school, and effectively become part of the warp and weft of the school’s tapestry. Instead of being assigned a master teacher, they spend the year with a Mentor Teacher and their class. Instead of university supervisors who oversee the student teachers, Resident Liaisons, who themselves were teachers, work closely with the Mentor Teachers to support their profession growth as coaches to the residents.
When I was a student teacher, I had to quit my job and teach full-time without compensation for an entire semester. Residents receive stipends for the year and support for their Channel Islands tuition and fees.
Dr. Maria M. Hernández, principal at Rio Real in the Rio School District in Oxnard, is developing a hub with several residents and mentors in her school—a community of educators present and future. When I met her last week, she told me that the residency is so successful that every teacher will raise their hands in volunteering to be mentors to our Residents.
Choices. Opportunities.
Paulo Freire reminds us,
Education is an act of love, thus an act of courage.
Take a moment to consider someone you know who would make an exceptional teacher or school leader—a relative, a neighbor, a friend. Can they express love and courage as an educator? Forward this newsletter to them and invite them to begin the conversation with us.
We can love many things and we can love in many ways. I choose to love courageously as an educator.
Looking forward,
Elizabeth
Elizabeth C. Orozco Reilly
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