One of my biggest projects this school year – so far – is to establish a creative writing club for our high school. I started with a vision and my previous experience of working with my teacher bestie, Dorri, to start a writing club at my previous school. To say that I learned from that experience is an understatement.
In that club Dorri and I worked to establish at St. Michael School, we dealt with technology issues, age differences (serving young middle grade students as well as middle school students), not to mention the hazards of the COVID 19 pandemic. It is crazy to think that we achieved anything at all. Yet, we did in a small way, even if the larger St. Michael community didn’t always recognize it.
We may have had a small core of roughly half a dozen students, but they were truly interested. They eagerly learned from one another. My 7th and 8th students demonstrated patience with Dorri’s 3rd graders, many of whom were just learning how to more fully express themselves in writing, expanding their thinking along with their vocabulary. Dorri’s 3rd graders brought enthusiasm and fresh perspectives to their older peers’ projects.
When I started at Michigan Virtual Charter Academy this past fall, I knew that I wanted to become involved in some kind of club. While I knew that we had a well-developed esports program, I didn’t exactly know what other clubs were offered. It turned out that while we offer an academic creative writing class, we did not have a creative writing club. Well, I sought to change that. So far, I have succeeded.
At the beginning of the school year, I focused on creating an online classroom full of resources I could have only dreamed of as a high school student in love with writing. There are dozens of websites to explore, hundreds of writing prompts, inspiring quotes, book recommendations, and so much more. Then, I watched over several weeks as my students connected and explored common interests. They grew as writers and found the confidence to share their work and a little bit about themselves. Students then spent much of the semester writing pieces intended for eventual publication, likely a blog. What happened next, I did not see coming.
We may have to wait until next school year to publish anything, but not only are both the principal and assistant principal extremely supportive, our head of school now knows about the project. In fact, I’ve received nothing but positive feedback. Right now, I am working on helping to ensure we keep moving ahead in the right direction. Who knows where this will take us? Already, I have had two new club members join in the first few weeks of this new semester. They’ve fit in seamlessly, which is a testament to the culture my students created. I am incredibly proud of what they’ve achieved!
I did not set out to become a teacher, I left that to my younger sister Erica. As her older sister, I’ve never known her to want to be anything other than a teacher and a mother. I envied the fact that she was so certain about her desired profession, not to mention her dedication to her love of children. When we played school – and we did often – I ended up being the school librarian while she insisted on being the teacher. Until our younger brother was born when I was age 10 and Erica age 7, we didn’t have a single pupil. By the time he was two, Erica made our toddler brother a series of report cards, grading him on things like “listening” and “sitting still.” But, this isn’t my sister’s story. It is mine.
My story of pursuing a career as a secondary teacher is by no means conventional. In fact, it is so unconventional and challenging that I would recommend it to no one. If it weren’t for the facts that teaching is in my DNA and I am meant to be a teacher, I would have given up long, long ago. Instead, I doubled-down when I was faced with what at the time seemed to be insurmountable obstacles. I even went back to substitute teaching when needed while deciding what my next step would be. I am a better person, and teacher, for it.
Every story needs to start somewhere, and mine starts with the statement that teaching is in my blood. It truly is. As a genealogist, as far as I can tell, the teaching tradition goes back at least five generations on my mom’s side of the family. It likely goes back even further. Both of Mom’s grandmothers taught, and one of her grandfathers served as principal of his daughters’ elementary school, as well as coach.
Interestingly, the teaching careers of my great-grandmothers could not have been more different. I knew both Grammy Bea (Beatrice Williams), who taught kindergarten and first grade for decades at the height of the baby boom, and Great (Leona Buttrick), who taught in a one-room schoolhouse and quit teaching once she married my great-grandfather Hatley. Although these are stories for another time, their careers illustrate massive changes in public education.
Funnily enough, the teaching tradition isn’t exactly confined to mom’s side of the family. Even though neither of my dad’s parents had the opportunity to further their education, they highly encouraged their children to do so. Both did, and even though my dad and his sister didn’t necessarily see eye-to-eye on much of anything, I find it telling that they both married teachers. On the Suszko side of Dad’s family, there are several special education and agricultural teachers. In fact, my cousin Kristy, a woman with whom I attended school at all levels from kindergarten to college, now teaches dairy science at the university level.
As much as I did not want to admit it, I am a teacher. It took me far too long to make peace with that fact. Something inside me would not let it go. As soon as I graduated from Michigan State in 2004 with degrees in supply chain management and Spanish, my entire world shifted. It would not be made right again until I went back to school in 2013.
It all started during the Great Recession with a casual conversation with my ex’s mom Cindy. We were invited to dinner as usual, and Cindy and I struck up a conversation. She told me that she wished that she’d gone back to school to become a nurse. All I could think at the time was that I did not want to be in my 50s and regret not pursuing an interest. During the Christmas shopping season of 2008, I worked at Best Buy in Saginaw. As I lived in the South End of Bay City at the time, I drove by Saginaw Valley State University (SVSU) every day on my way to work. Slowly, I started to wonder what would happen if I did decide to go back to school to become a teacher. The idea excited me and fed my imagination. How could I make it happen? How would I adjust? Online classes, in their infancy back in 2004, intimidated me.
Eventually, I had the ability to make it happen in 2013. I largely enjoyed my time at Saginaw Valley State University (SVSU), although I would advise commuter students to do their homework. For example, if I had not followed up with my advisor, I would have stressed out about the math portion of the general MTTC exam necessary to even apply to the College of Education. I didn’t necessarily doubt my ability to do higher-level math likely trigonometry and low-level calculus, but I had not remotely touched those subjects in well over a decade. The thought terrified me. Much to my relief, my counselor informed me that I scored high enough on the ACT test I took in high school that I did not need to take the general MTTC at all. I then questioned why I wasn’t informed earlier. She simply stated that it likely stemmed from the fact that I was a commuter and a non-traditional student. While I would highly recommend SVSU to traditional college students coming right from high school, I’m not so sure in other situations.
I enjoyed most of my classes and professors at both Delta College and SVSU, but I can’t say that I didn’t have any bad experiences. In fact, one professor and class at SVSU stands out for all of the wrong reasons. This particular professor taught a class that focused on diversity. However, somehow, throughout the entire semester, he managed to offend nearly everyone in the class. Horribly. He supposedly hated coaches. When I ran into a former classmate in a school setting years later, we naturally discussed this infamous class and professor. This man, who happened to coach as well as teach, informed me that this professor tried to get him removed from the College of Education program, likely because he planned to coach.
Somehow, this professor appeared to have no issue with me or one of my good friends, even though he had long ago deeply offended us both. As we paired up to complete our main teaching project for the course, things fell apart. When it came time to “teach” our project, our professor respected my teaching time and even seemed pleased. Then, he proceeded to continually interrupt my friend and teaching partner for her entire portion of the project. He made it exceedingly difficult for her to even finish. Already extraordinarily introverted, I have no idea how she made it through. Disrespectful doesn’t even begin to cover it. Unfortunately, she never did become a teacher, although she would have been wonderful. Instead, she became a librarian. To this day, I still believe that the world needs introverted teachers too. There are too many people like this professor that discourage future teachers every step of the way before they even get started.
Stay tuned … There is much more to this story.
Not just my favorite TED Talk on education and teaching, my favorite TED Talk period.
Over this long Thanksgiving weekend, I am grateful for all of the wonderful people in my life – family, friends, coworkers, students, customers, and more. I am truly blessed. If I started a list of all the blessings in my life, it would take me hours to complete.
I hope this post finds everyone well enjoying time with family and friends.
I will never forget Friday, March 13th, 2020. I teach middle school at a small, rural Catholic school, and we had just had an unexpected day off due to a boiler issue. Late in the day on Thursday, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer mandated all schools closed as of Monday, March 16th. Suddenly we were all faced with an undetermined amount of time off. Not only did teachers and administrators not quite know what to expect, students looked to us for answers and we had none.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. After school on that Friday, we were supposed to have an after school event for March is reading month, Prime Time Live Friday Night. Games, dinner, and prizes all cancelled. Our once full March calendar suddenly free. Now, our last Stations of the Cross is the last school memory I will have for a while.
I can’t help but think of all my 6th through 8th graders through all of this. Are they OK? How do I help make sure they are still learning? What can I do when I can’t assign any graded work as not everyone has internet access? I’ve worked my way through a crash-course on creating Google Classrooms, learning by doing.
Oh, the events! I so looked forward to so many events this spring! We had one field trip planned to Lansing in May, and I was in the process of booking another to the Michigan Science Center and the Detroit Institute of Art. We were just beginning the novel Esperanza Rising as a middle school. Oh, and the poetry unit I wanted to do. Then there were the professional development opportunities now cancelled. I looked forward to learning to become the best possible middle school teacher I can be. I am hoping that I have the same opportunities next year.
Then there are the longer-term questions. When will we return to school? What to expect when we do? When will society return to “normal’? How will things work with our seasonal family business, which is due to start Memorial Weekend? In fact, I’ve been splitting my time between trying to round up resources for my students and using this opportunity to get some business done.
Watching and observing how we have all come together as a profession (teachers are the best!), a church, a community, a state, and a country is heartwarming. Ultimately, we will all become stronger through this adversity.
Ever since I left MSU’s beautiful campus a few days after my graduation on April 30th, 2004, I’ve longed to give back to my fellow Spartans. My years at Michigan State were among the best of my life, and that is due to the wonderful opportunities I had as an undergrad. Not only did I heavily participate in study abroad and alternative spring break programs, I later worked as a peer advisor in the Office of Study Abroad, now Office of Education Abroad.
Through the umbrella Multicultural Business Programs (MBP) organization, I became an active member of Multicultural Business Students (MBS), eventually serving as publicity chair on the executive board, and the Women in Business Association. In fact, my connections to MBP goes back even further to the summer after my junior year of high school. That summer, I attended the Broad Business Student Camp (BBSC) (created and run by MBP), and I fell in love. I fell in love with Michigan State’s campus and what I envisioned my college life could be.
BBSC wasn’t the only factor in my decision to attend MSU, but it left a powerful impression. A few years later, I served as a camp counselor for BBSC thanks to arrangements made with my employer at the time, IBM. When I arrived on campus in August 1999, eagerly pushing my parents’ out the door, I already had a home on one of the largest college campuses in the United States: MBP. This is just a snippet of some of the opportunities I took advantage of while at MSU. It is now time to give back.
Even though I wanted to give back, I am not in a position to give monetarily at the moment, nor do I think that would be the best way to do so. Fortunately, I happened to stumble across a couple of great opportunities.
In fall 2017, as an alum of the Eli Broad College of Business, I received an email outlining the Alumni Wisdom Project. In short, the project, a component of a communications course on campus, pairs current MSU business students with Broad alumni. It is meant to be a one-time face-to-face or Skype informational interview focusing on career and experiences at MSU. Students then complete the assignment for class and share what they have written with alumni. I loved my first experience, so I signed up for another. It is exactly the type of experience I was looking for that would allow me to somehow give back to current MSU students.
Spartans Helping Spartans
I only learned of Spartans Helping Spartans a few months ago when I responded to David Isbell’s LinkedIn comment asking if there were MSU alums who were interested in reconnecting with the university. Dave Isbell works in alumni relations at MSU. I met him online several years ago when I first moved back to Michigan.
After my initial interest in reconnecting with MSU, Dave and I spoke on the phone. He described the idea behind his website Spartans Helping Spartans – alumni sharing their experiences with current MSU students in an informal podcast format. I was hooked. In our conversation, he told me that he remembered a little about my background, and I filled him in on what I am currently doing. Next thing I know, he interviewed me for the podcast and my first podcast was born. Check it out below.
There is much more to come. I am currently writing a series of blog posts highlighting study abroad for Spartans Helping Spartans. I will share them once they are on the website. In addition, I have had such positive feedback from this podcast, I am toying with the idea of creating a podcast myself. Stay tuned. All because I said yes.
Beal Botanical Garden – Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan
Ramblings of a Misguided Blonde 