Maggie Dickman

Pedagogy for Urban Leadership MA Culminating Assessment

What are the complexities of urban education that you face personally, professionally
(practice), and systemically (policy)?
Growing up, I was fortunate to attend one of the top schools in the Denver metro area. It
was a private school from preschool-12 grade. All 14 years of my formative schooling years
were spent at this school and I was never introduced to the more realistic situation that so many
other kids face. Because of my time at this school, I had a very skewed outlook on education and
did not understand, let alone realize, what so many kids actually experience. Starting as a Teach
for America teacher, my eyes were quickly opened to how things actually are. Working in an
urban setting, I promptly realized the stark contrast that my students faced in their schooling in
comparison with what I faced. This is not only true for me personally, but for so many students
across the country. It has been mind blowing to see how immensely things can change between
schools and districts simply by moving one zip code over. A few months ago, I went back to my
old preK-12 grade school for a visit. Upon setting foot onto the perfectly manicured, pristine
campus, my stomach immediately flipped. I almost felt shame for having so blissfully, and
ignorantly, spent my whole schooling career there without ever really taking the time to consider
what the situation was for so many others. The other kids in my neighborhood who went to the
local public school didnt have it too bad either, but that was simply due to the situation into
which they were born and raised.
Throughout my experience in TFA and the Pedagogy for Urban Leadership MA program,
I have come to have a much better understanding of the complexities of urban education. In
terms of how it affects me personally, the previous background information makes it a bit

clearer. Having never experienced a true sort of urban educational setting when I was growing
up, it was an interesting experience for me to navigate working in a completely different setting.
This is in no way meant to say that I had to learn how to teach those less privileged than me, but
I had to learn to adapt and to understand that regardless of their backgrounds and personal lives,
each of my students is equally as capable of learning and being successful as their more affluent
peers. Nonetheless, access to resources and additional support that all come through extra
funding goes a long way. My schooling experience was full of every resource we could possibly
need plus some. That is complete opposite of what I have experienced as a teacher. Teachers at
my current school have a sort of inside joke that our school is more or less illegal given the
lack of support and staff that we have.
Throughout my two years at my school, I have often found myself thinking about certain
students who would be perfect for my old school. My mind always goes to wondering how
they would pay for it and what I could do to help them get scholarships. When I catch myself
daydreaming like this, it is always in the context of how much better off those students would be
at my old school and what better futures it would afford them. It makes me sick to my stomach
as an educator at an urban, poor school to find myself thinking like that. We as teachers should
not catch ourselves thinking about what we could do to get our students out of our schools and
into other better schools. It should more be a question of what can I do in this school and
community to make it the right fit for my student and to provide him or her with the bright future
that he or she deserves. In this sense, my personal experience with urban education has shifted
and changed, as I am far more entrenched in the fight of bettering our urban public schools,
rather than thinking of what I can do to get those select few into the good, rich schools.

The complexities of urban education that I have faced professionally tie in fairly closely
with those that I have faced personally, as I believe teaching to be a very personal thing. Through
the experience I explained above, I have found myself to be much more of a fighter in my
professional setting. By this I mean, I have become immensely passionate in my work and I have
found the courage and confidence to fight for those passions. One example of this is an overnight
fieldtrip that just happened with my students. My school is an Expeditionary Learning school,
however I feel that we can barely begin to call ourselves EL. EL schools are often found in
affluent communities with the funds (and the families) to pay for the expeditionary learning
experience- extensive fieldworks, authentic resources, top of the line experts, etc. My school is in
a much less affluent community in a school district that does not smile upon charter schools.
Because of those setbacks, we are immensely limited in our resources and funding, so much so
that we have had to send out various letters to families warning of a possible closing of our
doors. Despite our lack of funding and constant struggle to keep our head above water, I
wholeheartedly believe in the EL model and wholeheartedly believe that our school and
community can find a way to make it function and work for us.
When I was a student, I had various opportunities to go on overnight trips with my
school, and these were always some of the most meaningful, impactful experiences in my
schooling. It was events like these that got me invested and excited about school and kept me
wanting to come back. When I was first hired at my EL school, I was so excited to not only have
valid reasons to go on these sorts of trips, but to be encouraged to do so (or so I imagined). I
quickly realized how next to impossible those trips would be, as even one field work a semester
was hard to pull off given our funding and resources. Nonetheless, I began planting the seed with
my administration for allowing me to take my students on an overnight fieldtrip, which aligned

with our expedition. Fast forward a year and a half later, after endless searching for the right
program, fundraising, scholarship writing and meetings with administration and families, and I
successfully took my students on my schools first overnight fieldwork, which has already begun
to set the stage for other classes to do the same sort of trips. This is one example of how I have
become more of a fighter in my profession. In the past, I would have been much more passive
about this sort of thing and would have just let it go. Now, I have strong beliefs and ideals as an
educator and will stand up for them and fight for them. Not only will I fight, but I will do so in a
logical, productive way. In this sense, I am fighting for my students and for what they deserve
regardless of the situation they were born into.
Finally, I wish to address the complexities of urban education that I face systemically
with an issue that I feel like was one of my main disappointments as a teacher. As my school
does two-year loops with students, I have had the same kids over the last two years. One of my
students has always had some behavioral issues and concerns, but they didnt really start to rear
their heads until the very end of last year and beginning of this year. Towards the end of last year
and much more aggressively at the beginning of this year, this student would make extremely
disturbing comments about wanting to murder staff at the school, family members or other
students. As the comments became more and more frequent and detailed, my co teacher and I, as
well as other staff in the school began to vehemently pursue mental/ medical help for this child.
His family already had him in counseling, but this didnt seem to be helping at all, and instead of
working with us to seek out additional or more substantial help, his family seemed more
concerned about not getting the police involved. After many months of dealing with the district,
Aurora Mental Health, Child Protective Services and more, his family finally pulled him from
the school and decided to home school him. While I do not wish to place blame on his parents,

my heart shatters for this child who was clearly suffering immensely and often times did not
know how to handle these thoughts he was having, but because of the systems in place, was not
able to get the help he needed. As his counselor put it, he did not meet the three levels of threat
required to get him access to a higher level program, the three levels of threat being intent,
plan and access. As she stated it, he clearly had the plan and intent, but not the access. Because
of this, the school was required to keep him in the classroom and no additional funding was
provided to the family to get him the more intensive help he clearly needed. After he was pulled,
I struggled greatly thinking about him and wondering about the kind of help he would receive.
This sort of event caused me to become immensely critical of many of the systems in place, not
only in our schools, but also in the greater scheme of things and the support that should be
provided to our students. This child was denied help simply due to certain policies in place that
made it that much more difficult to require the government to aid in mental health concerns.
Thinking about my school specifically and the level of support we were able to provide, this
child was in an over stimulating class of 28 other boys (single gender classrooms) where he
easily became stressed out and wasnt always able noticed until it was too late. These are the
sorts of problems we need to be continuing to eradicate and fix, as we cannot allow our most
vulnerable students to be left in a situation where they will simply be lost.

How should you address the complexities of urban education you each shared in your opening
statements based on what you have learned from your coursework in the Pedagogy for Urban
Leadership MA program?
I feel that I have learned so much as an educator throughout my time in TFA and the
Pedagogy for Urban Leadership MA program. As was mentioned in my opening statements, first
and foremost, I have had my eyes opened to the vast span of educational quality that our country
experiences. While I initially believed this to be all resource (financial) based, and that only the
most financially equipped schools could be the most successful, I now believe that to be
completely untrue. I have also learned to stand stronger in my beliefs and values and ideas of
justice. In that, I have learned to stand up for what I believe in and fight for it, but only if my
fight will be productive and done in a well thought out way. I have learned to not only accept,
but more importantly embrace and celebrate the unique backgrounds and cultures that my
students bring into the classroom and to use those as my springboard for teaching. This is just a
short list of what I have learned, as to try and put all that I have learned into words would be
impossible. Nonetheless, it is not enough to simply recognize all that I have learned, I must also
address and act upon it. Given my coursework through the Pedagogy for Urban Leadership MA
program, I have learned ways and gathered tools to begin to address those issues and so many
more.

One of the courses that was the most meaningful and impactful for me thus far was the
Curriculum Theories course. As I reflected on multiple times throughout this course, previously I
had put next to no thought into curriculum. I had a rough understanding in my head of what
curriculum actually was, but I never thought twice about its implications or impact upon my
students. Having gone through this course, however, I have become a much more critical, aware
educator. Throughout this course, we spoke extensively about Eisner and the three curricula:
Explicit, Hidden and Null. Before my time in this course, I would have only ever had thought
about the Explicit curricula, if I had actually thought about it all. By this, I simply looked at the
standards I was to teach and figured out how best to teach them, given my understanding of what
they meant and my previous schooling experience. However, throughout this course, I learned
just how much more there is to curriculum and how dire it is that we as educators consider every
aspect of the curriculum. This particular understanding aligns with my increased realization and
understanding of each students individual background, culture and needs. I would not say that I
had previously regarded my students as all the same, however I had not taken into account just
how important it was to keep each of them individually in my mind when it came to curriculum
building and planning. Because of this, it is highly likely that in the past I was simply teaching
my implicit values through what and how I taught, as well as what I did not teach.
I also learned so much about the actual curriculum theories out there and how they can be
applied to my classroom. Through this class, I learned that I align most closely with Stephen
Schiros Learner Centered Ideology. This meant that the kind of teacher that I sought to be was
actually close to that which I was already aligning with. The Learner Centered Ideology helped
me to have a better understanding of how best to see each student as a whole child and how to
keep each of their cultures, backgrounds and best interests in mind when doing actual planning.

These are all examples of how my experiences with urban education can be and have been
addressed through my coursework in the MA program thus far.
Another course that has aided me immensely in my ability to address the complexities
that I face in urban education was the course on Working with Communities and Families. In this
course, we learned about the power and importance of teaming with our students families and
communities to help enact the kind of change we would like to see in our schools. Thinking
about my example from my opening statement about fighting to take my students on overnight
fieldwork, this would not have happened without the aid and support of my families and
community. It took reaching out to the community to discover the program we did, it took the
community to raise the money to send my students on this program, it took parent support and
advocating to administration to help make this happen and so much more.
In the Working with Communities and Families class, we talked specifically about parent
power. One of our readings contained the following quote: an optimal level of parental
participation does not just happen; it must be initiated and nurtured by teachers and schools
(Young and Helvie, 2). It is going to be incredibly rare for a parent to be as involved in our
classrooms as we may like them to be without us first literally opening the door to make that
happen. In my situation, by simply reaching out and asking for help in making this massive
undertaking occur, it went off without a hitch, in large part due to the family support and
assistance I received. As was mentioned earlier, our schools are not going to change and improve
without the support and effort of families and communities. Because of that, we need to open our
doors and encourage the involvement of families in our classrooms and schools. This new
understanding and ability that I learned through this course has helped me greatly to make my

school the kind of place I am proud of and where I am not constantly thinking about what other
schools my students would be better off in.
Finally, I wish to reflect on the final part of my opening statement. In this section, I
discussed a sort of brick wall that I feel I ran into as a teacher and the subsequent feeling of
failing my student by not being able to get him the kind of help he so clearly needed. These
kinds of cases are so incredibly difficult to navigate, yet are so common. When reflecting on my
coursework thus far and how it could aid me in my search to address the complexities I face, I
came to a realization of just how important and impactful cold, hard data really can be. Statistical
data is such a contentious issue in education, but when it comes to advocating for change,
sometimes it is the deal breaker. In that sense, I believe that my work throughout the Research in
Schools class could provide some sort of insight or help in taking on these seemingly impossible
feats to change such deadest policies. Throughout this course, we learned how to go about
putting together an assortment of studies and how to analyze and interpret the data in order to
garner a better understanding of how to bring about necessary change. The benefit of doing this
kind of work is how obviously clear the data makes these issues. While I struggle to think of a
way to create a research study around mental health in schools, there is no doubt in my mind that
they exist or could be created. When it comes to something like a systemic policy, sometimes it
takes that cold, hard data to finally provide the ultimate push to make the change.