Hi everyone. My name is David G. Cassidy. I started in the May 2010 Cohort of the MAT@USC, and I’m pleased to be asked to be the latest student blogger for the program.
As you can probably tell from my picture, I’m a bit older than your typical graduate student. I’ll be 51 next month. I received my undergraduate degree from Bridgewater State College in Massachusetts in 1982, and I’ve spent most of the last 30 years as a part time performing musician and a fulltime B-to-B magazine publisher. I still write and perform music (those of you who are old enough will know why I write and perform under a different name), but I’ve left behind my publishing career to become a high school English teacher.
There are several reasons why I’ve decided to become a teacher at this point in my life. To be sure, one of them is the current state of the publishing industry. The recent recession, coupled with rapidly changing technology, has caused uncertainty and massive layoffs in that industry. The future of publishing is in flux, and now is a good time for the old guard to make way for the new generation who will define and create whatever eventually replaces traditional magazine publishing. I’ve considered being a teacher at several times in my life, but always took the other path. Now, the time is finally right for me to take this path.
The most important reason why I’ve decided to enter the classroom is my experience with my own children’s education. I have one child with special needs and another child who is academically gifted. I am a “hands-on Dad,” so I have an intimate knowledge of the nuts and bolts of our local public school. Much of what I see I do not like, and I have never been shy about expressing my opinions. I also have several relatives who work in urban school districts, and I see the same problems there that I see in my hometown schools. To put it bluntly, it’s time for me to stop carping from the sidelines and to get into the game. If I want to see changes in our schools, it’s time for me to work from the inside to affect those changes. It was fortuitous that I found the MAT@USC, because the program is all about changing the face of American education. Being a “USC Teacher” means something quite specific, and I am eager to get out into the world and be that teacher.
I live in a rural area of Vermont, but as I progress through The Framing Experience course (the first course you take in the MAT program) I am quickly learning the problems and concerns of public education are the same whether your school’s windows look out over parked cars and city streets or John Deere tractors and hay fields. I’ll be writing more about this in future blog posts. I also hope to bring the perspective of a mid-life career changer to the blog. There are quite a few of us older students in the program, and I want to encourage any prospective older students out there to consider the MAT@USC.
My undergraduate experience was long ago, and I went to an excellent but relatively unknown, small state school. To be honest with you, I didn’t think I would be accepted to the MAT@USC (my grades from 30 years ago weren’t as good as I had remembered them being). I’m honored to now be a graduate student at such a prestigious school as USC; I am excited to be a part of the Rossier School of Education and their goal of changing public education, and I am pleased beyond telling that I can now and forever call myself a Trojan.
Fight On!
