They’re
the ones helping a child who’s just immigrated learn English.
They’re
the ones using music to help a child learn math.
They’re
the ones teaching your child to read.
They’re
teachers. Leaders in their communities, they were trained by the state’s leader
in education: Hamline University’s Graduate School of Education.
Every
year more than 8,000 teachers choose Hamline for licensure, certificates, and
continuing education. More than 1,000 enroll in a degree program.
We’re
helping Minnesota and the Midwest combat some of the problems that keep our
youth from being successful, both the well-known—helping our newest immigrants
learn English—and the hidden—illiteracy, even among junior high and high school
students.
If
your family at one time came from another country, if you have a child in
school, if you’ve ever considered trading it all for a career in the classroom…
read the following stories of these courageous people who live—and love: Life
on the linoleum.
Seventh-grade teacher encounters an unexpected issue: Students who can't read
As a seventh-grade English teacher entering his first
class eighteen years ago, Jon Kahle felt prepared and excited to be teaching
his students all about interpretation and the symbolism of language. What he
didn’t expect to find was that many students weren’t even able to read the material,
let alone interpret it.
Kahle,
who now teaches at Central Middle School in Eden Prairie, said he’s learned
over the years that just because kids have reached seventh grade, doesn’t necessarily
mean they are reading and writing well enough to comprehend what’s in a
textbook or novel.
“Each
year I’m teaching I’m finding a growing number of students are having trouble
with just the basics,” Kahle said. “More and more kids who come into our
classrooms just don’t have the same experiences or backgrounds in reading or
writing. People have real misconceptions. You think, ‘Oh, Eden Prairie,’ but
there are a lot of kids in all of our districts who come from other cultures
and other countries and they may not have any school experience in their home
country, so they are dealing with that in addition to the language barrier.”
Other cases include students who may not have had exposure to reading as a
young child, or may have moved around so much they haven’t had the chance to
feel grounded.
Kahle’s
experience is not uncommon.
“There
are still some students leaving school in Minnesota who struggle with reading
and writing,” said Deirdre Kramer, dean of the Graduate School of Education.
“That limits their potential to become contributing members of our society. We
can’t give up on these kids. It all starts with literacy education.”
Many
teachers, like Kahle, are embracing that concept and engaging in opportunities
to learn about teaching literacy itself, and the Center for Literacy and
Learning offers coursework specifically focused on literacy. The center offers
graduate education courses, a variety of literacy-related certificates, and special
seminars geared at individual school districts’ needs.
“Literacy,
as we view it, is every aspect of learning. It’s reading, writing, speaking,
listening—all facets of communication,” explained Marcia Rockwood, director of
the center. “It’s a foundation for everything we do in school, and really, in
life. It crosses all content areas, and we feel that teachers of all
disciplines, from English to chemistry, need to understand the components at
play.”
According
to the most recent Minnesota Department of Education data, 84.8 percent of
eighth-grade students have passed their basic skills test in reading and 91.2
percent of tenth graders have passed the basic skills writing test. While the
numbers sound high, Rockwood said that still means about one in five eighth
graders and one in ten tenth graders have not yet achieved the basic level of
literacy needed to graduate.
Kahle,
who had already completed his master’s in education, started taking continuing
education classes that focused specifically on teaching reading and said the
results were immediate.
“It
already has helped me,” said Kahle, who received his reading licensure in May.
“I learned strategies in all my classes for working with the kids.” Kahle set
up a morning study group for his students. Every Tuesday morning he invited
kids to come and work on reading comprehension, using the tips he’d learned in
class.
“One
tactic I used with the small group was to have them read a short passage of
text, and then I had them use Post-it notes to ask questions or make statements
about what we’d just read. They had different color Post-it notes depending on
whether they had a question, a connection they could make to something else in
their life, or whether what they’d just learned was new to them. And then we
talked about the passage again as we sifted through their Post-its. As you can
imagine our discussion was much richer.”
In
addition to traditional coursework, Hamline also holds the Summer Literacy
Institute, a week filled with intense and diverse instruction and exposure to national
experts in the field of literacy. Now in its sixteenth year, the institute has
made a name for itself with educators throughout the Midwest, with more than
5,000 teachers participating over the years. Sarah Kantola, who is making the
leap from fourth grade to first grade at Moreland Elementary School in West Saint
Paul, looks forward to using what she learned last summer at Hamline.
“I
have so many English as a Second Language students, and we don’t have anyone
who really specializes in that. I took one of the classes on how to target
vocabulary instruction that was really helpful. It focused on using gestures
and physical responses as well as showing the written word to really help children
capture the essence of the words and what they mean. It’s just one more way to
teach words.” Deb Obey, a second-grade teacher at Parkview Center School in
Roseville, has attended the institute every summer for the past ten years.
“The
summer institute just regenerates me,” Obey said. “I will be heading back to my
classes next week, and now I’m going in with all of these new ideas.” Obey, who
holds her master’s in education from Hamline, said the most valuable part of
the institute is learning innovative yet practical tactics that she can use in
her classroom.
“It’s
critical to get kids to write all day in different ways for different subjects.
So for example if you’re trying to teach them shapes…ask the kids to write a poem
about a square. Getting them to stop and pay attention to their environment and
to work from that can really be an effective teaching tool,” Obey said. “A lot
of kids are completely gifted in math. But they can’t explain it—or write about
what they know. They would be so much more successful down the line if we can
intervene early and teach them to do that.”
Although
the summer institute takes place on Hamline’s Saint Paul campus, many of
Hamline’s year-round literacy courses are now offered off-site in partnership
with school districts across the state, as well as online. Kahle, who did a
good deal of his Hamline course work at a site in Plymouth, said he hopes more
teachers take advantage of the program, even if they aren’t reading or English
teachers. “Literacy goes across content areas. A lot of teachers tend to think ‘Oh
that’s for English teachers to deal with’ but kids are reading textbooks in all
subject areas and a lot of times they are not comprehending what they’re
learning in classes.
We’re
all in this together.”
Turning Teacher: Making the mid-career switch
The children in Michael Deppe’s second-grade math
class have an advantage over their peers in other schools. They haven’t simply
memorized equations or learned mathematical rules.
They’ve
written a song about the pluses and minuses of the numerical world titled “Even
Math Can Be Odd.”
As
Deppe, a gentle man in his mid-forties, strums along on a guitar, the kids
chant “math-math-math” until it’s time for the first verse:
An
even plus an even will always equal even An odd plus an odd will also equal
even but when you take an even and add it to an odd The number in the answer
will be odd (how odd!) However, there’s nothing odd about the fact that Deppe,
now in his fourth year of teaching the students under age ten at Harambee Community
Cultures/ Environmental Science School in suburban Saint Paul, is using music
to help students learn.
It’s
a skill he learned in the Master of Arts in Teaching program at Hamline
University. The director of the program, Kathy Paden, encourages the
approximately 450 students to bring relevant life experiences into the
classroom.
“Use
what you are and what you have and bring it to what you do,” Paden told Deppe.
So
Deppe, a musician who once earned a living repairing violins and guitars,
spices up math with bouncy tunes that serve an educational purpose. As an
undergraduate majoring in German and English two decades ago, Deppe pondered a
career in teaching, but pursued music instead. When his daughter began
attending school, Deppe headed to the classroom too—as a volunteer. He’d sing
Raffi songs to the children. And soon, the idea of teaching re-emerged.
When
Deppe asked his wife what she thought about his returning to graduate school to
prepare for a career switch, she said, “Oh, my God.”
“I
had a comfortable, but low-paying gig repairing instruments,” he said. “It was
a big change.” Now that he’s worked as a teacher for several years, there’s
little he misses about his old job. Deppe labored alone before, bringing new
life to beautiful, but broken stringed instruments. Now he’s surrounded by
people—short, noisy ones mostly—and the improvements he sees aren’t as
immediate. Sometimes it’s not until a parent tells him a child loved a
particular lesson that he knows he’s made a difference.
“It’s
a different, deeper impact,” he said. Graduate students in the program can
acquire teaching licenses in any of twenty-six specialties through a series of
evening classes, which typically meet once per week. With an emphasis on urban,
multicultural schoolchildren, students can begin teaching after earning
certification in a subject area or they can continue studying to earn a
master’s degree.
According
to the American Association for Employment in Education, the need for new
teachers is likely to increase in the next decade. That’s because about
one-third of existing teachers are fifty-five or older and may soon retire.
Still,
it’s not simply jobs that are attracting people to the profession. Paden says
most students want to become a teacher out of a sense of altruism.
“They
want to do something meaningful with their lives,” she said. “This is a job
that goes along with that value.”
That’s
certainly the case for two other Master’s of Art in Teaching students.
A
native New Yorker, Nick Ardito spent most of his twenties working as a trader
at the NASDAQ, a stock exchange specializing in technology companies. Buying
and selling shares of Microsoft and Dell was exciting, but it wasn’t personally
rewarding. When he learned about a nonprofit organization called Ice Hockey in
Harlem, Ardito jumped at the chance to share his knowledge about a sport he
loved with inner-city kids. While he taught kids about centering passes and slap shots,
the most important lessons were in the classroom.
That’s
because Ice Hockey in Harlem is primarily about improving the academic
performance of ten to fourteen-year-olds enrolled in the program.
“That’s
where I made the switch,” Ardito said. “I worked with kids who made a complete
turnaround in their education.”
Upon
moving to Minnesota, Ardito enrolled in the Hamline program. He graduated in
2004 and quickly landed a job teaching fifth graders at a Columbia Heights
elementary school.
The
Master’s of Art in Teaching program prepared Ardito for the classroom by
teaching him how to prepare lesson plans, understand child development, manage
a classroom and speak in front of a classroom full of people.
“There’s
a lot of peer teaching and presentations right away,” Ardito said of the
program. “They get you out of your comfort zone.”
But
that doesn’t mean the transition was seamless. “I struggled a bit in my first
year,” he says. “I was a bit naive with classroom management.”
Now
that he’s more experienced, it’s easier for Ardito to appreciate the small joys
the occupation can bring.
“Every
day a child does something that makes you smile or laugh,” he said.
Jenny
Johnson was already familiar with classrooms when she enrolled at Hamline
University. A former Peace Corps volunteer who taught for two years in Malawi,
a nation in southern Africa, Johnson majored in Spanish as an undergraduate,
worked as a substitute teacher in the Minneapolis Public Schools and taught
full time in the district for two years.
And
then new rules required her to obtain a teaching license. Hamline became her
graduate school of choice because they “understand the needs of working adults
and they considered my prior experience an asset,” Johnson said. She also liked
the program’s flexibility—students can begin classes during any semester—and
the sophistication of professors.
“They
stayed fresh with the current situation and had very experienced backgrounds,”
Johnson said. Since she already has classroom experience in the U.S., Johnson
chose to take advantage of the opportunity to teach internationally as a
student teacher in Panama. For four months, she didn’t speak a word of English
until one day, something surprised her and she uttered an “Oh, darn.”
One
of her students overheard her and exclaimed, “I heard you speak English, Ms.
Johnson!” Johnson recently landed her first post-Hamline job teaching Spanish
to high school students in Lakeville. Interviewed a few weeks before the start
of fall classes, she was anxious to get started. “I actually want to be in
class right now,” she said. “I miss it.”
This Place Called "Minnesota" - Learning English as a second language
When Jan Voelker was ten years old, she and her
brother boarded a plane in their Korean homeland and, many hours later, arrived
in an airport in a very strange and confusing place. People called it
“Minnesota.”
The
year was 1976, and Voelker, her biological brother, Bill, and childhood friend,
Peter, were adopted by a family in the small farming community of Scandia. “We
didn’t know a word of English. I thought everyone looked the same, and I
couldn’t understand even basic sounds,” Voelker recalled of her first
impressions. “My brothers and I just held on to each other and said, ‘Don’t let
go of me.’”
The
next day she was in complete culture shock. At 2 a.m., she woke up hungry.
Unable to communicate in words, her brother screamed to get their parents’
attention—and then made a slurping sound and shook his arms out in front of
him. Soon, their parents solved the mystery: Jan wanted noodles.
Thirty
years later, Voelker, now a teacher in Bloomington, laughs about her first days
in her new country. But experiences like hers repeat themselves even today as
more immigrants, refugees, and even adoptive children arrive in the United
States than ever before.
“The
United States is getting more and more immigrants—our country’s economy is
especially dependent on immigrant labor,” said Ann Mabbott, who serves as
director of the Center for Second Language Teaching and Learning at Hamline
University, where Voelker is currently a student. “If you talk to immigrants,
one of the things they’ll tell you is that Minnesota is a place where they can
get a job and the schools are good. They come here because they want to work
and they want their kids to have a good education.”
Across
the country, the demand for English as a Second Language (ESL) instruction has
reached an all-time high—and along with it, the demand for instructors who are
equipped to teach not only children but also adults, and not only in schools
but also in workplaces. In Minnesota alone, the most recent census data
indicates that the number of children ages five to seventeen who speak another
language and do not speak English “very well” increased by 121 percent since
1990. Hamline’s advanced ESL instruction, formally established in 1984 through
its Graduate School of Education, was among the first offered. Hamline was one
of the first ESL programs in the country to achieve national recognition from
Teachers of English as a Second Language (TESOL) and today it is one of the top
ESL programs in the country.
Before
they had access to ESL coursework, “people just made do with what they had,” Mabbott
said. “If teachers don’t know the law [shaped by a 1973 Supreme Court case, Lau
v. Nichols, requiring equal access to English instruction for non-English
speaking students] or best practices for teaching English as second language,
they are less effective professionals.”
As
a grade school student in small-town Scandia, Voelker, now an ESL teacher herself,
knew her teachers were doing the best they could to help her and her brother
adjust. “Our principal loved us so much,” she said. “If someone even looked at
us wrong, he was all over them.”
But
learning English was a much harder prospect.
“I
wouldn’t talk a lot. Instead, I would think in English,” she said. “It was like
singing with the radio on: As soon as you turn it off, you realize you don’t
really know the words.”
She
remembers the day she struggled to finally get the words out:
“May…I…use…the…bathroom?” Excited, her teacher burst out: “What did you say?” Voelker
was so scared she had said something wrong, she could only repeat: “Me…
bathroom.” Even so, Voelker’s teacher called her mom that night to
enthusiastically report: “Jan talked for the first time today!”
Her
teachers were wonderful, Voelker says. But it would have been an entirely
different experience if, back then, they’d had access to a program such as
Hamline’s.
“ESL
is smart, visual teaching,’ Voelker said. “You don’t use big words. Words are
very clear and simple. In Scandia, people just didn’t always understand that.”
What makes Hamline’s ESL program unique is that it doesn’t just equip teachers
to teach English to immigrants and refugees. It also prepares ESL teachers to
partner with children learning English in school and their parents, and helps
employers be more effective in the workplace with non-English speaking
employees.
Mabbott
said that most other ESL programs do one or the other, either focusing on
teaching children in the classroom or specifically preparing students to teach
abroad. Hamline’s program does both. “One-third of our students seeking an ESL
license are people who’ve always wanted to teach,” Mabbott said. “They’re
people who are making a career change, who either have an interest in other
cultures or maybe they have a connection to the Peace Corps… one of the nice
things about our program is that you can incorporate it into anything you do.
It’s a field that can draw on other fields.”
With
nearly 500 students enrolled from as nearby as Minnesota and as far away as
Korea, much of the ESL teacher education curriculum is offered online, as well
as in the classroom. “These classes are very demanding,” Mabbott explained,
“and offering them online doesn’t change that. But we are trying to take the
hassles out of going to school for our students— and especially for those in
rural areas who can’t drive for hours just to go to school.”
By:
JacQui Getty, Todd Melby, and Jennifer L. Krempin