College Students Take Part in Summer Special Ed TeachingTraining Program

NEWARK, NJ - Le’Naya White, an early education major approaching her final year as a college student at Juniata College, wasn’t quite sure how she would connect with her students when she started as a teaching fellow this summer in an Uncommon Schools program for children on the autism program at North Star Academy Charter School in Newark.

White is part of the Summer Teaching Fellowship, where college students who may have interest in teaching once they graduate take part in a seven-week professional development program, which includes three weeks of in-classroom teaching alongside a certified teacher.

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This way, these students can receive feedback, training, experience and professional development as if they were full-year teachers, and potentially return to North Star schools full time after they graduate from college.

When White returned to the special education classroom after spending a few days on a different assignment, she realized the deep connection she had developed in such a short time. She was immediately greeted by a student she had been working with the week before. He missed her.

“Initially, when I first came, he was very weary of me,” she said. “He was just like, who are you? Why are you here? What are you doing here?”

When White returned to his classroom, he had a different question: Where have you been?

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That one interaction told her all she needed to know about the impact you can have being a special education teacher.

“Seeing how much he noticed my absence was a big turn of events for me,” she said. “I'm thinking, he recognizes that I'm here for him and he knows it. And ever since then, (he) and I have been attached at the hip. He's my homie. I love him to death.”

The Uncommon Schools Summer Teaching Fellowship program was founded in 2010 and has trained 1,261 fellows since its inception. The program has helped to grow and diversify the teaching force at Uncommon Schools with 76% of the 40 fellows this year identifying as people of color.

The student teachers learn from the best teachers in the network how to run a classroom, from the dynamics and mannerisms to the methods of engagement. The goal is to give them practical experience and help them decide if teaching is something they want to pursue as a career.

New Jersey, like so many states, is suffering from a teacher shortage , particularly felt in special education. And for the first time in the Summer Teaching Fellowship, a handful of teacher fellows like White, who are interested in teaching children with learning disabilities, completed their in-class training at the Aspire program for Uncommon Schools.

The Aspire program started because there were more students entering North Star with more significant needs, and North Star determined that creating the new program would best support the students' needs during the year and part of the summer.

Currently, the program sits at four classrooms this summer, with 24 students in total. Each classroom has a teacher, teacher’s assistant and paraprofessionals as needed. The program is intended to personalize the experience for the students, as well as season college students in an enclosed environment for teaching.

It is also intended to be an extension of the school year focused on retention of skills previously learned.

Ebony Jones, who leads the Aspire Program, said the goal is for students to be enclosed in a personalized setting as much as possible.

The learning experience works both ways. As White showed, the summer fellows got an education, too.

“One of the things that we wanted it to do is give opportunities for college students to be able to have the experience of working with our scholars in the Aspire program, as well as some of our scholars in our general inclusion classes, so that they can have this experience they can grow themselves,” said Jones. “They can receive a look into what it would be like to work in a self-contained program.”

On top of having more personalized teaching and experiences for students with disabilities, there is a need for finding the groups of people, usually college students, who are interested in early education, and finding a place for them to become accustomed with teaching.

For teacher fellows such as White, there’s a personal connection and background to teaching that inspires them to pursue early education opportunities.

“I just always helped my mom with babysitting, watching my siblings,” she said. “As I grew up, I realized how much impact I had on my siblings and their actions and how much I inspired them.”

White said the interaction with her siblings showed her how much she loves being in a leadership role.  As she got older, she got more involved in volunteering at day care centers and working at summer camps.

“It just came from the overall feeling of being able to help people and knowing that I'm inspiring people in a way that maybe they wouldn't be inspired by before,” she said.

It has led to a career choice.

“I thought to myself, ‘How can I inspire them to want to stay in school and truly have a love for school the same way that I used to love school?’” she said.

This summer, one interaction with one student, showed White she has the power to do just that.

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