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April 2008
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ALUMNI NEWS |
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Teaching on Frontlines Offers Satisfaction Students here at AU can often be caught daydreaming in class about their internship on Capitol Hill… walking the wide corridors, passing the gleaming name plates that adorn 535 Congressional offices. But less than a mile beyond the Capitol is a problem each rep has failed to solve: the educational achievement gap between lower income families and their middle class counterparts. Cue Teach for America. The two-year program is run under the premise that great teachers have the qualities of great leaders. Based on this idea, Teach for America has found the solution to the achievement gap to be quite simple. Recruit the top students from the best universities around the country and put them through a challenging summer training program. Then, come September (or earlier), place them in classrooms across the United States, and give them unending support in their quest to give low-income students the education all children deserve. Since 2003, nearly three dozen AU graduates have answered the call to teach, serving in schools as far away as Los Angeles to as nearby as Prince George’s County and the District. The program offers an opportunity to serve immediately. Russell Croteau, SPA/BA ’06, a 10th grade U.S. government teacher at Bladensburg High School in Bladensburg, Md, had started his first year at Hofstra University Law School and was on a much different path. But something didn’t quite fit. “In law school I felt like I was spinning my wheels,” says Croteau. He applied to Teach for America at the last minute at the behest of his fiancé. “I was convinced I was ready to start making the rules,” he says. Once he began teaching, Croteau realized he might have had his ideas about making a difference a bit backwards. “You can’t make policy without first being in the classroom. I’m fully convinced of that,” he says, now more than halfway through his first year of teaching. “It’s something you do because you care about your kids as individuals,” he says. Lydia Albanesius, SPA/BA ’07, thought she wanted to go to law school as well. “I kind of realized I didn’t want to be a lawyer, I just wanted to do social justice work,” says Albanesius, who teaches kindergarten at Templeton Elementary School in Upper Marlboro, Md. “I realized this was a really good choice once I got in the classroom.” Albanesius says the hardest thing she had to learn was the day-to-day discretion a teacher must exercise in his or her own classroom. “I think that policy dictates and teachers have to take what’s being told to them and make it work in the classroom,” she says. “Each kid is different, but each teacher’s different too.” Susanna Reid, SOC/BA ’07, jumped at the opportunity to make a difference first hand. “I guess because AU has that mission, I have that mission,” says Reid. A 7th grade English and reading teacher at Sharpstown Middle School in Houston, Tex., Reid realized in her first days teaching in her own classroom that nothing could have prepared her for what she faced. “I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into,” she says. But Reid continued, undeterred by the chaos she saw around her. “It’s just really beautiful,” says Reid of the community she works in and the opportunity she has to make a difference. Most importantly, she has refused to lower her standards for her students. “I don’t know why I expect so much, but I love that I do,” she says. Michael Mass, director AU’s Honors program and a huge proponent of Teach for America for AU graduates, says many of the top undergraduates of his generation did not go into teaching. He’s glad to see that the trend has changed somewhat. “There is a huge need for action right here in this country,” he says. “These students can change individual lives very quickly, within their first few years out... It’s just amazing to see some of them giving back.” -Dan Beardslee, SOC/BA '07 | |||
