We can all agree that being a teacher is not the easiest of jobs.
So when a young student is interested in molding young minds, educators like Valerie Koch wants to do everything she can to keep them on that career path.
Koch is the Teacher Preparation Program instructor at the Concord Regional Technical Center and founder of Educators Rising New Hampshire, an organization that “cultivates highly skilled educators by guiding young people on a path to becoming accomplished teachers, beginning in high school and extending through college and into the profession.”
Back in March, Educators Rising New Hampshire held its second-ever state competition right here in Concord and the students from CRTC did very well. So well, that many are heading to Phoenix this week for the Educators Rising national competition.
During the four-day conference, students can participate in more than 40 workshops, compete in 22 disciplines designed to allow students to develop and showcase their teaching skills.
“I want them to go to as many workshops as they can because it will give them a much bigger sense of the this profession,” Koch said.
Of the 22 competitive events, members of the CRTC teacher’s prep program qualified in six after finishing in the top five in New Hampshire. The competitions range from presenting a children’s book written and illustrated by the students, solving an ethical dilemma, giving an impromptu lesson or impromptu speech, or public speaking.
“It can mirror so much of what to expect in this profession,” Koch said.
In all, 13 students from the CRTC and six others from around the state will make the cross-country trip to Phoenix.
It was up to the students to decide which category they wanted to focus on.
For Jaelyn Ortiz, a recent Concord High graduate, and her partner Nicole Epstein of Bow High, they chose to write a nutritional book for students in kindergarten through third grade. The book had to be less than 32 pages, and it was written in both English and Spanish.
“Writing a book was a lot harder than we thought it would be,” Ortiz said.
They competed in the state event last year, but didn’t do well enough by their own standards to go to nationals, which were held in Boston. So they took the judges’ feedback and made some important changes. And it worked because the duo finished with the top score in New Hampshire with a 103 out of 100.
You get an extra five bonus points for producing it in both languages, and the only two points they had taken away was for using a high school student in the photos when it was centered around an elementary schooler.
“We wanted to make a good story, but also teach them something,” Ortiz said.
Two spots behind them were Concord students Destynee Wilson and Emily Haywood-Minery. Their book centered around diversity in the classroom and how different is okay.
Both work at after school programs with many New American students, and just felt there needs to be more lessons on diversity. So what better way than to write a children’s book about it.
“We want to work together on something,” Wilson said.
“And something that is relevant to the times,” Haywood-Minery added.
There were a few slight grammatical errors and little things that the judges said would make the book even stronger, so they have since made the corrections and are hoping for a good showing at nationals.
“We hope with the changes we can do well, but we’re just really excited for the experience,” Haywood-Minery said.
Haywood-Minery also took part in a creative lecture, where students had to use a prompt to create a 9- to 12-minute TED Talk about teen suicide and how schools can work on making a safer environment. She took second in the lecture and will compete in both.
At states, the teams of Earnhardt Dail and Meg LaCombe, and Aliemma Kanu and Sadie Nadon competed against each other in impromptu lesson, and took first and second respectively.
In the impromptu lesson category, the teams are given a box of classroom materials as well as a written scenario detailing a specific class, including grade level, subject and other relevant context. The students must then use a 20-minute planning window to prepare a lesson.
“You have to be able to create a lesson plan that fits inside a box,” Kanu said. “And 20 minutes is a very short time.”
Then it’s time to perform a 15-minute classroom role-play of the lesson, with the judges acting as students.
“We’ve covered a lot of different grade levels so we can expect the unexpected,” Dail said.
Dail and LaCombe got third grade math and centered their lesson around a raise, which is a new way to teach multiplication that takes the memorization aspect out of it and instead uses an array of shapes like dots or stars.
Kanu and Nadon got second grade English and the lesson included the students creating their own mad libs.
“It has everything to do with collaboration and time management,” Nadon said. “It’s one of the best competitions because you get to showcase practically everything you’ve learned.”
Only one point separated the two groups, and at nationals, because of a change in rules, only one team per school can compete. So to make it fair for everyone, they’re joining forces.
“Now we have this super team.,” Koch said.
Dail and LaCombe will also take part in the ethical dilemma competition after finishing second at states. There, they were tasked with working through a scenario where a teacher had to find the common ground between fulfilling their job with the directive from administration, while also considering the opinions of parents.
“It was a lot about defining the role everyone should play in education,” LaCombe said.
Tyler Restuccia finished third in public speaking and will also be heading to Phoenix. He created a 3- to 5-minute speech centered around the issue of how children of a different culture aren’t getting enough support.
He chose public speaking because he likes talking in front of a group, and after making some changes, he’s hopeful of how things might go at nationals.
“I fixed it right away, so I didn’t forget,” Restuccia said. “I want to improve my score, and it would be cool to beat the other kids from New Hampshire.”
Recent Concord graduate Jennika Mannesto will compete in Educators Rising Moment, where the student must give a speech about their personal experience that articulates why they aim to pursue a career in education. She also took part in impromptu speech and moved on to nationals after placing third.
Three others that took part in impromptu lesson, Chloe Magee, Emma Perkins and Meredith Smith will go to the conference, but not compete.
CRTC students Kayla Rae, Bryon Chagnon and Kasie Maloney qualified but are not going to nationals.
The Educators Rising national conference takes place Friday through Monday. For more info, visit educatorsrising.org.
For more about the New Hampshire chapter, go to facebook.com/educatorsrisingnh1.
“The big hope for our program is to take these students, build the interest, the skills, get them to college and have them stay and work in New Hampshire,” Koch said.
