I teach because I believe that learning alongside future educators creates a ripple effect – everything I pour into one of my students multiplies across dozens, even hundreds, of classrooms over the years.
Clinical Assistant Professor
The field of English Education lives at the intersection of identity, literacy, and power. Teaching English isn’t just teaching grammar or novels – it’s teaching students how language shapes their worlds, their relationships, and their sense of self. Secondary ELA classrooms become places where: students negotiate their identities through stories, language ideologies are questioned, and literacy becomes a tool for agency.
That makes the field rich, messy, and deeply human. Being even a small part of growing the next generation of secondary English teachers is a wonderful privilege and deeply humbling.
I teach because I believe that learning alongside future educators creates a ripple effect – everything I pour into one of my students multiplies across dozens, even hundreds, of classrooms over the years. There’s a unique sense of purpose in preparing people who will go on to shape how adolescents read, write, think, and see themselves in the world.
What makes me passionate about this work is the chance to help new teachers develop not just skills, but professional identities. Watching candidates move from tentative beginners to confident educators, who understand theory, honor students’ lived experiences, and know how to design meaningful ELA instruction, is profoundly rewarding.
I also love helping future teachers grapple with the deeper questions that make secondary English education such a powerful field: Whose voices do we amplify? How do our language choices reflect our values? What does equitable literacy instruction look like in real classrooms? When candidates begin to see teaching as both intellectual and moral work, that’s when it feels like something truly transformative is happening.
Ultimately, I teach teachers because I care about the future of the profession. New educators deserve to be seen, supported, challenged, and inspired. If I can help them feel prepared—both practically and philosophically—to create classrooms where students feel valued, capable, and curious, then I know the work matters.