Carolyn Peterson, a doctoral student in the Language, Literature, and Culture Program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, has been a PDK and Pi Lambda Theta member since 2019. She is one of many current educators who shared their knowledge and research with the next generation of great educators at the 2024 Educators Rising National Conference.
“I knew I wanted to be a teacher from an early age, and I also knew I wanted to teach middle or high school students,” she says. Peterson has served as a 6th-grade English teacher at Ottoson Middle School in Arlington, Massachusetts, as well as in multiple positions as a special education reading specialist, most recently at Uxbridge High School in Uxbridge, Massachusetts. Today, she is focused on her Ph.D. work but plans to return to the classroom as a reading specialist soon.
Peterson’s research centers on special education and multilingual education, with a focus on adolescents who are learning English as an additional language. She found a receptive audience at the conference that more than 3,000 future educators attended last year. “I was excited for the opportunity to share my current research . . . I thought that my topic would be of interest to others.”
She continues, “I wanted to offer a unique perspective to the education community along with providing strategies and resources educators can use in the classroom when working with students.”
Last summer was the first time that Peterson presented at the conference, and she was impressed with students’ interest in her topic. “The Educators Rising students were a big piece of my audience, and they had many wonderful stories and experiences to share about . . . students learning additional languages in the classroom.”
During the session, students had the opportunity to discuss the topic in small groups and share what they learned. Peterson said that “the students were eager to share what their small group had discussed with the larger group.”
Any members who would like to present at the 2025 Educators Rising National Conference in Orlando, Florida, can apply to do so before Jan. 17, 2025. The conference will include more than 40 sessions offered June 26-29, 2025. Sessions should be aimed at middle and high school students and be participatory. For more information on presenting a session, visit https://educatorsrising.org/conference-competitions.
This article appears in the December 2024 issue of Kappan, Vol. 106, No. 4, p. 63.
