Summer Archives

Caroline Mulligan New York City, NY - Partnership for Afterschool Education (PACE)

Caroline Mulligan

New York City – Partnership for After School Education

This summer, I worked as a literacy and art teacher in East Harlem in New York City. I was a teaching fellow with Partnership for Afterschool Education (PASE), a nonprofit that connects after school and summer programs across the city to have professional development for program directors, build connections between programs, and pool resources to make each site more effective. PASE works with over 1,000 after school and summer programs, reaching thousands of students annually. After school and summer programming is a growing sector as organizations see the potential for out of school time to improve academic performance, minimize risky behaviors, and aid social and emotional development. This is especially prevalent for low-income students who do not have as many academic resources at home or as many opportunities for engaging learning activities, such as visiting a museum or taking piano lessons. The summer magnifies these differences, which is often reflected in achievement scores upon returning to school in the fall. A low-income student is more likely to have lost reading and math skills over the summer than a student from a middle-class family.

Each summer, PASE creates a cohort of 20 college teaching fellows, who are each placed in different summer programs to work, learn, and practice effective teaching methods. My site was Dream Charter School in East Harlem, which offers a free after school and summer program for hundreds of children kindergarten through 8th grade. In the morning, the students have literacy and phonics development led by a full-time teacher. In the afternoon, they have enrichment activities: art, yoga, cooking, and baseball. I co-taught the literacy block in the morning and worked as the sole teacher for the art enrichment in the afternoon. In the morning, I worked with the same class everyday. In the afternoon, it was a specialty class, so I saw every class in the school once per week for art.

This was my first time working as a full-time teacher, and I learned the value of compassion in the workplace. First, compassion for the students. Each child comes to school with unique attributes and hardships. They deserve to be treated with respect and dignity, regardless of how they express their emotions. As a teacher told me this summer, “The students who need the most love show it in the most unloving ways.” This became my mantra in the hot afternoons when a child threw scissors across the classroom or in the early mornings when a student refused to participate in any class activities. Also, I learned to show compassion for coworkers. The summer was full of long days and tiring work, so I found myself drawn to the teachers who stood out for approaching each day with a smile, a positive attitude, and a drive to collaborate. A culture of optimism, teamwork, and understanding is crucial in a school that serves not only as a place of learning, but a safe haven for students who need it the most.