Stepping Stones: My Journey to Becoming a Literacy Consultant- Step Five

Salem College. This is one of my most favorite places in Winston-Salem. This is where I received my Master’s Degree in Language and Literacy.

I had been teaching about five years, muddling my way through teacher’s manuals and curriculum guides, mostly just doing “stuff” with my students, when I decided to go to Salem College to take some classes.

I was teaching in Surry County at the time and a wonderful professor from Salem College, Dr. Chris Baker, was leading some really great staff development in our county. Dr. Baker is from Australia and I loved, loved his accent.  I was also interested and intrigued with the concepts he was teaching related to the theory of constructivism.

The basic idea of this theory is that people construct their own knowledge and understanding of the world, through experiencing things and then reflecting on the experiences.  The bottom line is that constructivist believe we are active creators of our own knowledge – learning by doing.

Dr. Baker was the first person who explicitly taught me about constructivism. (I am so thankful for him.)  Not long after I met Dr. Baker, I started taking classes at Salem College and a couple of years later I graduated with a Master’s Degree in Language and Literacy.

I LOVED graduate school! The graduate program at Salem College is hard and rigorous and stressful but so worth the work. My experience at Salem gave me the knowledge base to move from knowing some good things to do with kids to facilitating rigorous, purposeful, strategic lessons.

This is when I learned WHY I was doing the things I was doing in my classroom and HOW they were connected on a larger level.

The confidence this program helped me discover brings chills to my skin as I write. I found my “voice” as an educator. I learned how to think critically about everything from teacher’s materials to education policy. I learned the importance of thinking carefully and reflectively about the decisions I was making and how they were impacting teaching and learning.

As Emeril says, “I kicked it up a notch!”

Graduate School was an important step in my career and ultimately helped me to make the decision that education was going to be my CAREER…………. and not just a job.

Step Five: Kick it up a notch —  continue your education by getting a Master’s Degree