Statement of Purpose

Last October I was talking to a fellow teacher at my church who mentioned a graduate program at Harvard. It sparked my curiosity and I began looking around at the details of the various options. An Educational Leadership program caught my attention, and I decided I would try for it. This led to a month of GRE vocab flashcards, recommendation letters, and essay writing (and revising, and editing, and revising). This is the final 1500 word statement of purpose detailing my past experiences and the future opportunities I hope for. Incredibly, those hopes just might come true. Enjoy!

I didn’t always want to be an educator. I had flashy plans for a career in graphic design, and I was satisfied to have found a prosperous and enjoyable avenue so early in college. Professional teaching was filled with fluff and summer vacations, in my eyes, and I certainly didn’t regard it as pathway for social change. But I was curious about how to promote justice, and found myself in a university service-learning opportunity tutoring in a full-scholarship Jesuit middle school on the west side of Chicago. What I experienced changed my entire outlook: I saw that education can be a way of empowering the marginalized to succeed in ways society doesn’t expect, that the best pedagogy is filled with creativity, and that it just might be my calling. Once I saw education was a powerful means of social justice and that I didn’t have to leave my creative skills behind, my career plans shifted to bilingual education.

I was trained by an institution that continually stressed teaching the whole person, seeking the welfare of the poor, and creating equitable classroom environments. I observed bilingual programs and urban classrooms in a city rife with injustice and inequalities. I graduated with a full heart, a ready spirit, and a School of Education Dean’s Award of Social Justice under my belt. I began teaching in a segregated low-income Chicago Public School and learned, like most new teachers, at an exponential rate. My school, unlike many others, prioritized bilingual programs, but even still I saw the disorganization and inefficacy of a program lacking leadership and high standards. I observed principals with lofty and sincere intentions but no power to change systemic structures because of local and district needs and other leaders whose priorities were far from their bilingual classrooms.

When life brought me to the east coast, I landed in a school district with a substantial low-income linguistic minority population and few structures to meet their needs. The academic development of English language learners was given minimal priority. Teachers held criminally low expectations for them and were blatant in their prejudiced opinions. When I asked about the supports provided for their English language learners, I often heard “It won’t matter. They still won’t be able to understand” or “They don’t have background knowledge to even begin.” When I suggested strategies, I was given excuses like “This is just more work for me,” and when I made plans for collaboration, I was told “Maybe sometime.” Conversations like this were indicative of the toxic culture in which my students were attempting to learn. Another manifestation of this culture was the absurdity of location: I taught for 11 months on the landing of a stairwell. Due to a building renovation and a lack of overall space, I taught six to seven students in a 10’ x 6’ rectangle barely large enough fit one table, not to mention open exposure to hallway noise, uncontrolled temperatures, and limited wall space. There were the messages it sent my students: “We don’t have room for you. You aren’t valued enough for a better space.” Constant ingenuity was needed to keep my students engaged and create a space that communicated value and support. Frustrated as I was, I met this challenge because my students mattered and their future was being shaped in that stairwell. I wouldn’t let the situation make me another person neglecting their needs because it was inconvenient to do otherwise. My successes were not free of setbacks, however. One student was a puzzle from the start. A unique combination of childhood trauma, language acquisition interruption, a learning disability, and a machismo facade all contributed to his lack of motivation. I tried every trick I knew to reach him, documented everything, met with teams of specialists, and at the end of the year I could not honestly say he was in a better position than at the start. Despite our encouragement, he was still defeated. Despite specialists, his academic progress languished. Despite counseling, he was choleric and defensive. We sent him to seventh grade with a thick stack of notes in his file, but no real solutions. The team that meant to support and empower him had somehow left him pugnacious and resentful, with thicker walls than at the start. One of the biggest outcomes I learned was the continued importance of holistic education—not separating the head, the heart, or the hand when shaping a person. We should have advocated for in-home therapy, after school tutoring, peer mentorship, and athletic enrichment activities. For some students it truly takes a village to make lasting change, and the narrow expertise of all parties must not be underestimated. Had we tackled this student’s issues with a more comprehensive approach, seeking to understand his development through a bioecological model, I am confident we would have had a more positive and sustainable impact.

As my role shifted from educator to advocate in a school culture that valued diversity only in name, I was a leader in instructional practice and assessment data, consistently bringing to light the perspective of our newcomer ELL population. I found myself in difficult conversations challenging the status quo, interrupting the all too comfortable habit of putting these students on the back burner. My identity as a teacher shifted with the advent of opportunities to step in, to dispute patterns of injustice, and to confront the consequences with creative solutions. This is when I realized the limitations to being a classroom teacher. I was powerless to move systemic barriers before my students. I always thought I would be fulfilled quietly impacting the lives of 30 students each year, but I couldn’t be satisfied watching the best efforts of my students undermined by an administration that neglected their unique needs. The only way to fight the cynicism slowly encroaching on my spirit was to look for ways to make a greater difference. If I wanted to make a difference in the lives of my students, I needed to take what I’ve learned to a higher administrative position.

            This might look like a position with the potential to mobilize socioeconomic capital in non-government organizations in the favor of linguistic minorities. I want to move resources where they are most needed, and coach the implementation of programs they fund. I’m discouraged by wealthy districts with bountiful resources and scarce needs while schools like mine struggle to keep pace. If I can evaluate, finance, and oversee sustainable changes that will accomplish real good, I can help organizations make the best of their goodwill and economic power. Right now there are numerous private foundations pledging millions to educational causes. These foundations need capable, thoughtful individuals to evaluate which school districts, non-profits, charter schools, and organizations will receive funding, and then implement the programming to maximize efficiency and comprehensive student impact. Private money has the power to be selective in its investments, thereby allocating funds to the neediest populations. I would like to take this privilege and use it to achieve the agenda of bilingual learners through multifaceted programming worthy of financial backing from private charitable groups, empowering those in public positions to realize their full influence in their communities. Likewise, these institutions need system-level leaders developing thoughtful, innovative approaches to change in their organizations. My experience has equipped me to promote new strategies for teacher training, new requirements for language assessments, and new approaches to school models. I want to be part of developing these ambitious transformations in their creative approaches to equity for students of all backgrounds, and I want to see them become systemic norms. Having the opportunity to develop these changes, I will work for the structural improvement of public education to the greater benefit of English language learners.   

The issues I would like to work on are the rights of bilingual students and responsibilities of their educators, the role of community organizations meeting educational needs, and the (in)abilities of system leaders to implement change. It is HGSE’s leadership in these fields that makes it an essential next step in my story. My trajectory would be greatly enhanced at Harvard through encountering the work of Catherine Snow on bilingual education, the research on poverty of the Achievement Gap Institute, and the essential content of courses in leadership, equity, and social change. My teaching experience in a variety of program models for language minorities under a range of leadership styles and with a range of added community, family, and societal factors would be invaluable to the cohort. I bring firsthand knowledge of the systemic barriers to English language learner success and the little victories I have seen. My mind is bent toward the efficiency of organizations and the capabilities of their visionary leaders. I will relentlessly pursue system-level change, for every language learner crippled by inadequacy, for every principal trapped in red tape, for every teacher surviving and thriving in a stairwell. Change is absolutely at hand, and I want to lead it.