Classroom gig spurred Tow-Yick

CLASS ACTS: Heather Tow-Yick, Teach for America Rhode Island executive director, said that there needs to be a
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 FILE 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.

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Tow-Yick was completing her bachelor’s degree at Brown University when she first heard the calling to teach.

As a junior, she literally came upon a recruitment meeting for Teach for America on the campus, and sat in to listen. Her family boasts 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,

Tow-Yick left the program as a classroom teacher, but made education her career focus based on the experience.

In Rhode Island, she initiated the Teach for America program in 2010 and it has grown steadily.

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.

“We just need a call to action across the country for more people to go into the field of teaching,” Tow-Yick said.•

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