"There are people in the field who think class size is the only thing, but in fact, the dominant factor is having a great teacher in front of the classroom.” –Bill Gates
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates recently spoke on the future of U.S. education. Among other concerns, Gates addressed teacher quality as the foremost factor in determining students’ preparation for life after school.
In the interest of creating a teacher base in Philadelphia that is equipped to give students the tools they need and the quality education they deserve, the Philadelphia Education Fund established Philadelphia Teacher Residency (PTR). The program recruits recent graduates and professionals with a background in science, technology, engineering, and math and provides them with a 13-month training to prepare them for teaching careers.
The program includes an intensive year of one-on-one mentorship. The relationship between resident teachers and mentor teachers goes a long way in nurturing the great teaching and higher teacher retention rates that our students need to excel. Two of the program’s current mentor teachers shared with us their stories from the Residency program.
Amanda Fegley is a first-time mentor teacher at Murrell Dobbins High School, where she has been a teacher for the past three years. Fegley began her teaching career as a member of Teach for America.
“I just really wanted to see fairness brought to education and I thought I might have something to offer these students,” she says. “I came into teaching to work relentlessly to make sure they got the education they deserve.”
After a year of Teach for America, Fegley signed on to work at Dobbins full-time. She embraced the opportunity to mentor this year and has not looked back. Fegley has found it rewarding and enjoyable to help her resident problem-solve in the classroom.
“I have loved the camaraderie—this is two people together working toward a common goal,” she says.
Fegley has nothing but praise for Stephanie English, her resident teacher: “She has left such a mark on the entire school, and she has set the bar so high in her professional behavior and in her relentless attitude.”
Most enjoyable over the course of the year, says Fegley, were the “ah-ha moments,” when she and English discussed and tried a new strategy that met with immediate success in the classroom.
“The coolest thing is that I get to spend an entire year trying to inspire somebody to love teaching in the inner city as much as I do,” she says.
While Fegley is just getting started on her journey as a teacher and a mentor, fellow mentor Jerry Silverman is something of a seasoned veteran in both realms. After thirty years as a school teacher, Silverman is now retired, but he maintains his connection to schools and education through the teaching residency program. Now in his third year of retirement, Silverman is a mentor because, he says, “I didn’t want to just walk away from education [after I retired].”
“I still enjoy exchanging ideas about teaching- I still have something to offer,” he adds. “When I started teaching, there was nobody there to do that for me.” Silverman has been a mentor since PTR’s inception in 2009.
Silverman’s path to becoming a math teacher was unplanned. Originally, he aspired to be an architect. As he began to pursue his dream, however, he realized that it was not right for him, after all. In search of a different career, Silverman began to consider education. Teaching may not have been his first choice, but Silverman admits that the decision made disparate pieces of his past “fit together.” He is a role model for our Residents, who are often career-changers themselves.
After 37 years as an educator, Silverman reflects that the path was absolutely correct for him. “I made it my goal to make my students understand that math is the basis of everyone’s life every day. We are all affected by it all the time,” he says. “I’ve always felt that math has a horrible reputation.”
The best part of the job has been the moment when “the kids catch on— when you see it in their eyes when they finally grasp what you are trying to explain.”
With mentoring, Silverman explains, the reward is very similar. “If I give suggestions to the teachers I work with, I really get a lot of satisfaction when they tell me that they tried it and it really worked,” he says.
Through the dedication of individuals like Fegley and Silverman, Philadelphia schools are gaining a breath of fresh air in the form of new, innovative, and committed teachers each year. Through the residency program, the Ed Fund is laying the groundwork for a lattice of teachers in the city, working to change schools one classroom at a time.
