Alicia Rosenberg, TAC '09, High School History

Facts:

Alicia had a transformative experience while teaching high school students from Atlanta, GA. The students were in Washington, DC to learn how to be active citizens by creating public policy initiatives to improve their neighborhoods. The week culminated in an expo where students shared their policy initiatives, and demonstrated the citizenship and leadership skills they had acquired. The students confidently articulated their ideas through speeches and writing, and they worked together to rally behind their vision. It was at this point that Alicia saw education, especially education that provides authentic learning opportunities, as a source of empowerment for youth. The week-long process that the students from Atlanta went through gave them the tools they needed to enact change in society, and provided them with skills that would be useful in their future academic and personal endeavors.

Alicia headed next to the classroom to get more experience working with youth in settings that provided opportunities for students to take ownership over their learning. Alicia found this type of learning environment at a fledgling expeditionary learning school in DC where students were encouraged to engage in purposeful, relevant hands-on learning inside and outside of the classroom. She worked here for two years as a teaching assistant. Graduate school became the logical next step so that Alicia could acquire more tools to become an effective educator. As a Newton, MA native, she returned to her roots, and entered the Teacher Education Program at HGSE.

Inside Scoop:

"TEP was a perfect fit for me because there was a cohesive cohort that went through the program together. This allowed for a strong community to develop that would be an important support system as the year progressed and hopefully one that will be there long after the program ends. I also was attracted to the urban focus of the program, which has played out in monthly panels that deconstruct the idea of "urban," and informative classes about the assets and challenges of urban schools. Another component that attracted me to the program was the flexibility in our schedule to take electives, which allowed me to take discipline-specific courses in other graduate schools at Harvard."

"HGSE is an extremely supportive place to get a graduate degree. The faculty is diverse, accessible, accomplished and dedicated to the well-being of students at HGSE. The fact that TEP begins in the summer is also a huge plus because it allows the cohort to adapt to HGSE before other students arrive and it allows the group to get to know one another on a professional and personal level."

"The Cambridge Harvard Summer Academy prepares you for the year-long practicum in your school site. It allows you to begin lesson planning and teaching with a team of others who serve as a support system. It is also a good complement to the Methods class that begins in the summer, which addresses effective pedagogy, lesson planning and discipline specific issues and nuances."