It was interesting to move through the Master of Arts in Education (MAED) curriculum at Michigan State University (MSU) over a relatively long period of time. For most terms I only enrolled in one course, or at a maximum two courses. This not only allowed me to be fully present and engaged in each course, but also allowed me to be quite intentional about following new interests or building on courses I took previously. One clear sign of this was a realization about halfway through the program that my MAED planning form, in which we outline our planned courses for the degree, was changing every semester. Ultimately, the flexibility of the program and the breadth of courses offered were critical for maintaining motivation and engagement throughout the program, which resulted in a tremendous amount of learning. I am confident that the MAED program has impacted me more than I realize currently, but below are three of the key takeaways that I have identified already.
1. Making a Difference as an Individual Requires the Right Mindset.
When I began the MAED program after just finishing my second year of teaching, I was focused on my individual classroom and how I could be a more effective teacher. I was confident in my teaching but felt that I could be doing more to be a better educator without being able to name how. As a novice teacher, I was expecting to learn about new teaching strategies or classroom management tools but the courses at MSU prompted me to take a step back and reexamine my ideas about education itself, and helped me realize that improving my mindset, not my teaching, would allow me to take the next step as an educator.
Moving from a Deficit Model of Thinking to Culturally Responsive Pedagogy
EAD 822: Engaging Diverse Students & Families, taught by Dr. Jada Phelps-Moultrie, was one of the most impactful courses I took during the program because it highlighted how much more there is to being a good educator than content knowledge or pedagogy. In particular, learning about the prevalence of deficit thinking in the context of education – or the mindset that cultural differences obstruct academic excellence – forced me to reflect on my own practices as a teacher and identify areas where deficit thinking existed. The course helped me consider the tangible ways education could change by shifting my mindset to one of culturally responsive pedagogy, which instead tries to harness cultural differences to boost academic excellence. For example, when thinking about my experiences teaching, I thought I was doing well engaging with families because I always had positive interactions with them, mostly during parent-teacher meetings and occasionally at a school event. However, upon closer inspection, I realized that some parents weren’t able to attend the parent-teacher conferences and did not have time to go to school events. I was doing a terrible job engaging these families, which tended to be minority or lower income families. To truly engage, I needed to take a more community-centric approach to engaging families and seek out opportunities to interact with them outside of school and in the larger communities that we belonged to. Clearly, this change in my mindset towards family engagement could have a significant impact on students.
Education is Primarily About Connecting Skills and Knowledge to Everyday Life
Another change in the way I think about education that I believe has had a large impact in my professional life came from the reflecting on learning we did in CEP 800 - Learning in School and Other Settings with Diana Brandon and Cui Cheng. The idea that education was much more than the content that was taught is quite prevalent, but many times what ‘much more’ means is left up to individuals to decode. One perspective that we read about in CEP 800 suggested that the primary purpose of schooling was to connect skills and content knowledge with the real world. As a former language teacher, this immediately struck a chord. Although I am sure there are world language classrooms that consist mainly of lectures and grammar drilling, the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) and language pedagogy in general has really been emphasizing how world language instruction connects to students’ lives outside of schools in five key areas (communication, cultures, connections, comparisons, and communities). As an administrator, though, I have found it more difficult to connect my work to students’ future lives because I am not responsible for teaching them any content. This class reminded me to keep this goal of schooling in mind when facilitating international experiences and advising students throughout their educational careers.
2. There Exist Structural Issues in Education that are Difficult to Tackle as an Individual.
When I made the transition from classroom teaching to administration, I often questioned whether I was making the right decision. I genuinely enjoyed feeling personally responsible for the learning and growth that I saw in my students and believed that I might lose my sense of purpose as an administrator. It turns out that my fears were misguided. The MAED program did not only help me realize that I could work to build culturally responsive pedagogy and real-world skills transfer into the programs I was running as an administrator, it also highlighted several deep-rooted structural issues within education that I would not have been able to tackle as an individual teacher, but I could as an administrator. One of the most impactful courses in this regard was TE 823: Learning Communities & Equity with Dr. Kyle Greenwalt.
The Weight of Grades
One structural piece of learning we looked at in TE 823 was the practice of grading, and the negative affects grades can have on intrinsic motivation and curiosity. Not only that, but grading is easily impacted by implicit bias, which in turn can work to perpetuate racial stereotypes. As I was learning about these consequences of grading, I was working as a program manager for an organization that developed summer enrichment programs for talented students that focused on promoting intellectual curiosity. One of the most unique features of the program was that students did not receive any grades. It came as a surprise, then, to hear that our director was considering implementing grades to our programs because that meant they might be able to get college credit – a big selling point for other high-caliber programs. What I learned in TE 823 allowed me to confidently speak out against such a change and provide research that documented why grades went against the organization’s mission. Ultimately, my arguments swayed many of my colleagues, and our director decided against such a change.
The Harmful Effects of Tracking
The correlation between tracking – the practice of organizing students in high- and low-ability groups – and education inequality has been well documented: tracked classrooms tend to increase the achievement gap between those in high-track classrooms and those in low-track classrooms. Although our summer program did not track students, the fundamental theory for why tracking is harmful, or, phrased differently, why learning communities with a diverse population of learners is beneficial, remained relevant in our admissions process. As program manager, I was also responsible for reading applications and making final admissions decisions for a region of the world, and had some input in the overall admissions process for over 5,000 applications. I advocated for less emphasis on quantitative measures of success and more emphasis on qualitative assessments on values that we thought would enrich our learning community – curiosity, humility, and compassion.
3. Leadership is a set of skills and behaviors that you can intentionally develop.
Mention of leadership can be found in mission statements and job descriptions around the world, but few are able to define it. I was guilty of this myself – every organization I ever worked for sought to develop leaders, but we never really talked about the details. In some ways, leadership is easy to identify when you see it; just think of Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, or Steve Jobs. But identifying what exactly allowed these leaders to succeed so spectacularly is much more difficult. The most influential course I took during my MAED program was EAD 801: Leadership & Organizational Development with Dr. BetsAnn Smith, because it allowed me to finally gain a clearer understanding of leadership, and more importantly, how to develop it. In particular, the distinction between transactional and transformational leadership, as well as the book “Full Range Leadership” by Bruce Avolio, which emphasized the importance of both styles of leadership, highlighted specific behaviors that great leaders often display and how these behaviors can contribute to their ability to enact lasting change.
Identifying Budding Leaders and Helping them Grow
One of the most immediate impacts this knowledge had on my work was in my evaluation of applications to our summer enrichment programs. In fact, there was a rating that we gave each application for ‘Leadership’ in the evaluation rubric, but the explanations for the difference scores were extremely vague and our readers tended to rate students who held more leadership positions higher despite there being no evidence of real leadership in most cases. With a more concise definition of leadership, and clear signs to look for, I felt much more comfortable evaluating applications. Whereas before, I would have looked at a student’s resume or activity list, I found myself relying on personal statements and other short response questions much more after taking EAD 801. Additionally, in my current role I advise first-year college students, most of whom have ambitious plans for life after graduation. I have found that students often state that they would like to develop their leadership skills in college but are unable to articulate how they might do so when I ask about their plans. Going through what I have learned in EAD 801, and in particular the four I’s of transformation leadership (idealized influence, inspirational motivation, individualized consideration, and intellectual stimulation), has really helped them reflect on how they are able to practice these skills in their specific contexts.
Developing as a Leader in Education
Learning about leadership has also shaped how I view my own career and changed how I think about my current work. Previously, it was difficult for me to dispel common myths about leaders such as ‘Leaders are born, not made,” because I did not have much evidence otherwise, and it was difficult for me to visualize how I would get from where I was to a position of leadership. With my newfound knowledge about leadership, I am much more confident that I can become a leader in my field and have a clearer idea of the path ahead. As with many of the students I advise, I now place much less emphasis on positional leadership and look for opportunities to develop my leadership in the current context. As a result, I am more intentional about how I interact with my colleagues and which projects I take on. Looking forward, I know that I will be evaluating future job opportunities on the potential for me to continue practice developing my leadership skills.
In summary, the MAED program has had a significant and lasting influence on me as an educator and as a professional. Much in my life has changed, both professionally and personally, from the time I began pursuing my MAED. I transitioned from being a classroom teacher at a K-12 institution to being a university administrator serving high school students, and then transitioned again to another administrative role serving university students. Outside of my career, my wife and I began a family when we welcomed our daughter into the world. Despite these rather large shifts in my career, I have found that my learning has always been relevant to my professional life. Furthermore, with a young child in my life, I found I was even more motivated to engage with the material I was learning; everything seemed so relevant to her development.