Hi everyone! My name is Heather Glover, and I’m part of the September 2009 cohort of the MAT@USC. While I’m almost finished with the program, I’m very excited to blog about my experiences and hopefully be of help to those of you with new-student jitters. I’m also eager to discuss the latest education news and debates with you, as people all over the nation continue to weigh in on such topics as national standards, Race to the Top, single-gender classrooms and technological literacy.
While I’m very passionate about education, I can’t say that I’ve always seen myself in the classroom. In fact, as a child, I wanted to grow up and become anything except a teacher. I thought of teaching as a profession one chose because it’s practical, stable and respectable—in other words, as something one does when no other opportunities present themselves. I think my opinion had much to do with my grandmothers, both of whom were widely loved and respected teachers and both of whom once had other dreams for themselves. My paternal grandmother wanted to be a nurse but became a teacher when her skin color barred her from admission into nursing school. My maternal grandmother admitted to using teaching to escape, eloping with my grandfather and pursuing a four-year education degree after her mother told her that two years of college would be good enough to teach at the “colored school” in their small hometown and thus allow my grandmother to finance her younger siblings’ education. Even when I realized that instruction occurred beyond the grade school classrooms in which my grandmothers taught, teaching still did not appeal to me. A few of my college professors wore their aversion to teaching lower-level undergraduates like protective jumpsuits, fighting to rid themselves of contaminants like comma splices and uninspired interpretations of literature. They concluded that students who didn’t talk in class were either lazy or stupid, and they longed for departments that encouraged faculty scholarship in exchange for lighter teaching loads.
My view of teaching began to change after my sophomore year at Armstrong Atlantic State University in Savannah, Georgia, where I majored in English. That summer, I became a tutor at the university’s Writing Center, offering one-on-one assistance and occasionally teaching informal grammar courses for large groups. A year later, I continued in that position while leading a summer creative writing workshop for inner-city teens. Both jobs allowed me to help students of various ages—from kids that reminded me of younger siblings to coeds older than my parents—develop their writing skills, and both made me realize how much I enjoy working with students to create meaningful learning experiences.
Unfortunately, the time I spent as a long-term substitute teacher after graduation made me second-guess my desire to become an educator. I didn’t expect subbing to be exactly like working with college students or aspiring young writers, yet I certainly wasn’t prepared for what I encountered in the two public schools I entered. I saw students who had to practice for standardized tests so often that they slept for most of the testing sessions after bubbling patterns on their answer sheets. I overheard teachers say things like “That’s just why you’re not ever going to be anything but a janitor. I should make you sweep the floor like the nothing you are.” I stayed on students who went to sleep in my classes, then felt horribly when I learned that one young man worked in his family’s club until two in the morning almost every day. I quickly discovered that teaching involves so much more than great lesson plans; that good teachers have to find a way to teach effectively while helping their students deal with limited resources, poor social environments, increasing pressure to raise test scores, high teacher turnover and a host of other problems. “Even if all of these issues are fixable,” I wondered, “do I really have what it takes to help make the system better?”
I knew that if I had any chance to give students the education they deserve—particularly underserved students in urban areas like Atlanta, where I now live—I needed a program that would focus on eliminating social barriers as well as training me to teach subject matter. That’s why I chose the MAT@USC. I’m on the Multiple Subject track and I hope to become an elementary ESL teacher and help push the state of Georgia into offering quality bilingual instruction by teachers qualified to teach language and content. Eventually, I’d also like to work as an adjunct professor—college students need great instructors, too!
I’m happy to be a part of the Trojan family, and I look forward to working and talking with you in the coming months!
