The Kenan Fellow/Mentor partnership is the foundation of our program and what we do. What does this parternship mean to you?

Obviously this program does not work without a mentor.  The mentor is here to give the teachers the valuable science experience that we all signed up for.  I was really worried coming into the program that my mentor would not be very patient with my lack of lab experience, or would talk over my head with science concepts and terms that I am unfamiliar with.  This was not at all the case.  Dan worked extra hard along the way to make sure that he wasn’t talking over our heads or dumbing down his work.  He explained and demonstrated lab procedures over and over to us until we felt comfortable doing them ourselves.  But I think the part about working with Dan that made the experience the best is when he said that he didn’t want to be called a mentor, that didn’t quite feel right.  He said he felt more like the science collaborator, and we were the education collaborators.  That “mentor” made it sound like he was above us when really he viewed us all on the same level, just with different expertise.

Another level to the relationship is that he was willing to come to our schools and meet with our students.  My students were so excited to meet “a real scientist”  that they are still talking about it.  They have been asking questions about the mites, and when will Dan have our results and be back to see us.  I think this is really the coolest part.  Science doesn’t seem so far away.  The kids are very excited about knowing a scientists and working with one and being a part of the experiment.  Science has been made real for them, and they love it.  Even the students that told me they don’t like science, or they are creeped out by the face mites.  They all seem much more engaged and willing to learn now that they share a piece of this big puzzle.

Each of the three professional development institutes was different, but great.  The first one really felt like a great pick-me-up after a long year of teaching.  I left NCCAT feeling valued, empowered, and encouraged.  I remember thinking “yes, this is why I chose this profession!  Teaching is fun, and it’s about making learning fun for kids.”  The second PDI really helped me make the transition from our awesome summer experience back into the classroom.  We were asked to think realistically about our experiences and the things we had learned this summer and how we were going to take them into the classroom in the fall.  At the third we were really challenged to think of ourselves as leaders, not just in our classrooms and schools but our local communities and beyond.  Leading up to it, I was not very excited about the third Professional Development Institute.  I didn’t think I was interested in the speakers or the theme of the weekend.  Leaving, though, I understood exactly why were presented with these things and how we can use our positions to influence change.

Looking back, I fully appreciate the way the PDI’s were laid out.  The order and timing of them makes sense for cultivating teacher leaders.  You built us up with the first, challenged us to make change in our classrooms with the second, and then challenged us to make change in our communities and state with the third.  The current state of education in NC is pretty bad.  There is a teacher shortage and with the demands and expectations growing each day, more teachers are leaving.  It is going to take some strong, passionate teacher leaders to make positive change happen.  Kenan Fellows are just the passionate, strong bunch to do that.  I loved learning about the opportunities to make my voice heard.

The KF experience as a whole has shown me that being a teacher is not only about what happens in my classroom.  It is about what I do to better my students lives, and to better my profession.  Creating quality lessons to be shared across the state, becoming a leader in my school for other science educators and using my voice to reach out to law makers to make positive changes are all things that I have learned how to do through this experience.  I am so sad that the Professional Development Institutes are over! 🙁