Classroom gig spurred Teach for America director

CLASS ACTS: Heather Tow-Yick, Teach for America Rhode Island executive director, said that there needs to be a “call to action across the country for more people to go into the field of teaching.” / PBN PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY
CLASS ACTS: Heather Tow-Yick, Teach for America Rhode Island executive director, said that there needs to be a “call to action across the country for more people to go into the field of teaching.” / PBN PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY

She could have been a lawyer or entered government service or journalism. But two years in a middle school classroom convinced Heather Tow-Yick that she would focus on a career in education.
Every professional step she took following those two years in the Bronx, in which she taught English and U.S. history to eighth-graders, was made with the intention of improving her knowledge and skills to advance the needs of public school students.
As executive director for Teach for America Rhode Island, Tow-Yick oversees a program that places 30 teachers a year into some of the state’s neediest schools. The state arm of the national program, which began here in 2010, has 140 alumni in Rhode Island, and two-thirds of the teachers who fulfilled their initial two-year commitment as classroom teachers are still working in education.
Some, like Tow-Yick, have moved into administrative or other roles.
Two-thirds of the Teach for America teachers in the Ocean State also work in the subject and specialty areas with highest need, such as high school math and science, special education and teaching English as a second language.
The need for committed teachers, particularly in hard-to-fill specialties, has only grown in the past five years. Nationally, fewer people are entering teaching, Tow-Yick said. This may be because as the economy has improved, other industries that compete for talented graduates have stepped up hiring.
Teaching remains in need of talented, committed individuals, who are motivated to inspire children to reach their potential, she said.
“We just need a call to action across the country for more people to go into the field of teaching,” Tow-Yick said.
Tow-Yick was completing her bachelor’s degree at Brown University when she first heard that calling. As a junior, she literally came upon a recruitment meeting for Teach for America on the campus, and sat in to listen. Her family includes many educators, including her aunt and mother, but Tow-Yick at that point was also considering government service, journalism and graduate school.
After the serendipitous encounter with Teach for America, she became focused on teaching.
Once she received her degree from Brown University, in American Civilization and English and American Literature, she entered Teach for America. As part of the program, she taught for two years at a middle school in New York.
The experience was transformative, particularly in her second year of teaching. At that time, her eighth graders entered with a mix of writing skills. But most were several grade levels behind their peers, some as many as four grade levels behind.
At year’s end the class had almost 100 percent proficiency on their eighth grade exams,
She was, she noted, not a “great teacher.” But she was one who constantly thought about what she might do better, and tried to motivate students to improve.
Tow-Yick left the program as a classroom teacher, but made education her career focus based on the experience. She went on to earn two master’s degrees, a Master of Arts in teaching at Columbia University Teachers College, and later an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management.
In Rhode Island, she initiated the Teach for America program in 2010. Over the past five years, it has grown steadily. Although the size of the teaching cohort doesn’t change, Tow-Yick points to the fact that many of the alumni have remained in Rhode Island as evidence of their commitment to the schools, and the state.
Teachers commit for a two-year span of service and are paid by the local system, on the same basis as a first- or a second-year teacher. While they teach in the system by day, they attend classes for two years at Rhode Island College and receive certification through the state. The program offers pathways to certification in elementary education, English and special education, general science and special education, and in math and special education. Teachers are hired by the principals, who make those decisions independently.
Through Teach for America, they find a support network and a commitment to two years of mentoring. Each of the schools that partners with the program is committed to that as well. “All new teachers need to continually learn and grow,” she said.
As executive director, Tow-Yick oversees recruitment of the incoming cohort of teachers. (The deadline for applications for the upcoming school year was Jan. 30.) Teach for America emphasizes diversity in its efforts. Nationally, about 50 percent of the people selected for the program are racial or ethnic minorities, which is more diverse than the national teaching pool.
It matters, particularly as the population of students in public schools has become more diverse, Tow-Yick said. The teacher serves as a potential role model, and a shared background offers another level of motivation for some students.
“We are really focused on developing a talented population of teachers of color for the classroom. This is the first year in our country in which the majority of students are nonwhite.”
For the good of the country, she says, teaching as a profession needs to be reinforced. “Public education is the backbone to a strong economy,” she said. “We need everyone to be thinking about who would be a great teacher, and encouraging them to take that step.” •

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