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Study Skills: Frances Olajide, Ed.L.D.

Study Skills: Frances Olajide, Ed.L.D.

Frances Olajide

Frances Olajide was a junior at Xavier University in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hit, leaving the campus submerged in four feet of water. Like many of her displaced classmates, Olajide took refuge at another college for a semester — in her case, Bryn Mawr. While there, she went to a reading by Sonya Sanchez, the famed poet whom she had heard speak a couple other times. After the talk, Olajide approached Sanchez.

“I don’t know if you remember me,” she said, hesitating. Sanchez smiled and said, “You say that every time I see you.” Olajide went on to tell her she no longer wanted to be a pediatric psychologist, but a judge. Sanchez responded in a way that not only surprised Olajide, but also changed her career and life trajectory. “My, it’s fascinating that you’re still thinking about where you want to catch them, but I think if you catch them on the bench,” she said, “it will be too late. Teach first.”

So that’s what Olajide did, with stints in the Bronx and KIPP Infinity in Harlem, New York. Then she decided to go back to school herself. She applied to a few distance executive education programs and the Ed.L.D. She told virtually no one, second-guessing if she should have waited to apply. But then a conversation with Jeff Riley, Ed.M.’99, a mentor from her time working with Acceleration Academies in Lawrence, Massachusetts, where Riley is the receiver/superintendent, again changed her thinking. “The kids,” he said, “don’t have time for you to wait.”

Now in her second year of the Ed.L.D. Program, Olajide spent more than three weeks during the winter break in Thailand — a dream destination since she was in high school — visiting and studying schools: three in the Bangkok area, plus two and an orphanage in a village on the northern border of the country, near Burma. Part of the trip was just to listen.

“I spoke with principals and teachers about their work, their hopes, their biggest problems, and the resources and thinking they are wielding to address those problems,” she says. As a result, her wheels are now spinning on where to focus next.

“Travel always changes one’s trajectory,” she says. “It’s why I took the time to take such a big trip at such a pivotal time for me.”

Ed. Magazine

The magazine of the Harvard Graduate School of Education

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