A soon-to-be double alum reflects on teacher leadership

I began my journey at Mount Holyoke College as an undergraduate student in the class of 2021. After graduating with my degree in psychology and education, I began teaching third grade nearby in Springfield, Massachusetts. When the time came to begin my master's degree, I already knew that the quality of education and values of Mount Holyoke were a match for me. Meeting with Jemelleh Coes and Eric Schlidge confirmed that I would be given the opportunity to learn and grow — not only as a teacher but as a leader in the MATL program.

My first few classes reaffirmed my belief that the MATL program would push me to be a better educator and leader. My amazing cohort brightened my evenings with lively conversations about everything from restorative practices to the science of reading. It was the first time as an educator that I got to talk to a wide range of other educators — from private preschool to public middle school and boarding schools — and hear about their experiences. This opened my mind to how the systemic issues I see in my own work exist in other school contexts. In addition, I began to see how others were addressing similar struggles to the ones I was facing in a completely different context. This expanded my own view of the world of education and deepened my understanding of how entrenched these systemic issues are in public schools.

In my first summer, I took a course called Coaching and Mentoring with Elise Kuypers and Shelby Regner. Before the course, I knew that I wanted to have a leadership role of some sort, and they supported me in thinking about what that might look like. They helped me begin to contextualize the issues I was seeing both in my own practice and the practices of my colleagues. Their gentle and encouraging guidance supported me in growing my confidence as a coach for other teachers and helped me see a future as an instructional coach. One of my favorite things about the class was having the chance to practice coaching our peers and explore how it felt to be coached. We took the tools that we had learned during the intensive week and put them to use in our coaching partnerships. Being a hands-on learner was crucial to my development as a coach. This course defined how I approached the rest of my time in the program — with a new goal of eventually becoming a reading coach.

With this new goal in mind, I took a new approach to my fall and spring courses. Another course that stuck with me was Current Issues in Education. Justin Minkle was our fearless leader when it came to thinking about how our passions could be turned into advocacy. We wrote op-eds and learned how to pitch our ideas to policymakers, and I began to understand how I could use my experience as an educator to effect change. Working through the assignments in the class strengthened my public speaking skills as well as my writing skills. Because the program is so small, we were able to develop strong relationships with each other as a cohort and with our instructors. Justin and I connected over our love of reading and advocacy for home libraries. That relationship inspired what would become my capstone project on reading communities. Without Justin’s guidance, I would never have thought about creating these communities in the classroom.

The culmination of our master's is the capstone project, which was a daunting prospect when I first began the program. However, from the beginning, I knew that the faculty and my cohort would support me through the work required to complete the project, and I was right. Writing the capstone project is something that seemed impossible at first but is now completely possible with the support I have in the program. This journey has taught me so much about myself — as an educator, student and leader — and has prepared me for the next steps in my career.

Thanks to my time at Mount Holyoke — from starting as a first-year student in 2017 until now — I feel much better prepared to achieve my goals as an educator, and I have a clear vision of the next steps to take. This program has empowered me to use my leadership skills to create change — both within my own classroom and in the education system.