We asked our Educators Rising students to share what they believe they need to learn more about as they prepare to become teachers and what kinds of experiences have been most helpful in their preparation so far.
Communication skills
Amiyah Treneá Baker
Teachers need a variety of skills, education, and training to become proficient in their careers. They need excellent communication skills so they can explain the material in the curriculum in diverse ways to students who have different learning styles. I believe that I still need to work on my communication skills.
The experiences that have been the most helpful to me are when my teacher academy class goes out for field experiences. We go to our elementary schools and get assigned a teacher to serve as their assistant. This has helped me clearly see what age and grade I want to teach, what I want my teaching style to be, and how I want my classroom to look.
Amiyah Treneá Baker
11th grade | Starkville High School
Starkville, Mississippi
Meeting with parents
One thing I need to learn before becoming a teacher is how to properly hold meetings and conferences with my future students’ parents. I believe that is a vital skill that I have not been able to experience yet.
Torrey McClain
One of the most helpful experiences I have had on my road to becoming a teacher is helping out at a local elementary school. This opportunity gets me up close with what it is like to be an educator, and I am able to see some of the pros and cons of teaching firsthand.
Torrey McClain
12th grade | Palmer High School
Palmer, Alaska
Dissecting the challenges
Ana Valadez
I need to fully dissect the challenging role of the teaching profession to properly prepare myself as an education major.
My experiences with the Texas Association of Future Educators (TAFE) have provided me with a wide variety of training and supportive experiences. This includes my Area 1 officer position, Gear-Up Education and Training representative, educational leadership within my school and community, working as a teacher at a dance studio, and many other blessings. And the example my loving teachers have set is the best gift they could give me to prepare for a career as an educator.
Ana Isabel Valadez Munoz
11th Grade | Homer Hanna Early College High School Brownsville, Texas
Exploring diverse identities
Mary Kathryn Gebhart
Overall, I would love to learn how to incorporate all diversity — whether that’s gender, race, disability, culture, and more. Being an early childhood major, I would love to learn how teachers take this approach. I also would love for my students to learn more about everyone’s identity.
Some experiences that helped prepare me were Eastland Fairfield’s Career and Technical Schools Teaching Professions Program. They taught me the basics when it comes to education: how to handle situations, how to support students, and more. What I loved the most was that we were in classrooms two or three days a week and got to use those skills. Robyn Hilderbrand (our teaching professionals educator) created such a positive learning environment where everyone wants to learn and be the best.
Mary Kathryn Gebhart
First Year | Capital University
Bexley, Ohio
Building a community
Alison Presnell
I’m excited to learn new strategies allowing me to build a positive classroom community. Experiences that have allowed me to expand my knowledge include my internship offered by West Clermont High School, where I am placed in classrooms within our district, and my supportive peer classes, where I’m able to grow connections with students in the high school as their peer mentor.
Alison Presnell
12th grade | West Clermont High School
Cincinnati, Ohio
Finding a specific mission
Keiren Minter
I think one of the things that I have struggled with is what grade I want to teach. Volunteering at my community theater is really helping me with that. I am currently directing a play, and it is helping me realize that I want to teach high school rather than elementary. I aspire to be a high school theater educator.
Theater education can help young people develop a strong sense of self and identity, build empathy, and broaden the ways they make meaning of the world around them. Educators Rising is also one of the main reasons that I aspire to teach, and I am extremely grateful for this life-changing program.
Keiren Minter
12th grade | Watson Chapel High School
Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Patience with chaos
As a future teacher, I need to learn patience and tolerance for chaos. I think being in teacher academy and teaching at Winton Woods has taught me how to build student/teacher relationships.
Grace Suggs
12th grade | West Clermont High School
Cincinnati, Ohio
Pedagogy and motivation
Aiddan Robinson
Teaching observations through the Teaching, Learning, and Leadership Pathways at Ballard High School has been the most effective and successful experience when it comes to preparing for my career as an educator. Subjects where I need to improve include pedagogy awareness, activating schema of students, and being able to activate the motivated student inside each child.
Aiddan P. Robinson
10th grade | Ballard High School
Louisville, Kentucky
Katelen BreAnn Bennett
Practice managing a classroom
If you are planning to become a teacher, you need to learn how to provide for students with special needs, how to properly manage a classroom, how to create an engaging classroom, and how to create and plan material for the students.
Some experiences that have been beneficial for me are joining Educators Rising and being able to learn what is needed to become a teacher and getting to observe and teach a class.
Katelen BreAnn Bennett
11th grade | Converse High School
Converse, Louisiana
This article appears in the May 2023 issue of Kappan, Vol. 104, No. 8, pp. 68-69.
