Oscar ‘Jova’ Trochez teaches English Language Arts at the Highlander Upper School in Warren. He also supervises a new Career and Technical Education ‘Aspiring Educators’ program to promote teaching as a profession to diverse, urban students. Trochez is shown in front of graphic design novel pages designed by students. (Photo by Josh Bland, Highlander Upper School Science Department Head)
Jova Trochez recently gave me a tour of Highlander School’s summer school taking place at the Providence elementary school campus. I asked why he became a teacher.
“I hated school.”
OK, but what specifically did he hate about it?
“What do you mean?,” he said. “It was school, that’s all. Boring. It wasn’t sports or video games. It was school.”
Furthermore, in his large, Rhode Island urban-ring high school, the only Hispanic teacher taught Spanish, and the only Black teacher was a sub. The message? School was not for the likes of him.
But in time, those complaints morphed into a desire to change traditional schooling. Now Trochez is not only an English Language Arts teacher, he is also the supervisor of the Career and Technical Education Pathways program for the high school students at their Warren campus. Other career pathways will evolve at Highlander, but his passion right now is building an “Aspiring Educators” program to promote teaching as a profession to diverse, urban students.
Highlander School students are shown with a volcano project. (Courtesy of Highlander School)
Trochez spent this hot, beach-beckoning summer creating and then teaching a weeklong professional development program to prepare would-be teachers for their own summer-school classes.
He guided the novices in the arts of crafting logically sequenced academic skills that students will need in order to complete their own cool, concrete final products. Kids studying cars and erupting volcanoes needed to understand mass, velocity, thermodynamics. The graphic novels group studied how to build plot pyramids, thematic arcs and characters that would give life to their hardcopy stories.
Only Highlander’s juniors and seniors are eligible for the Aspiring Educators program, unless a teacher recommends a younger student. This summer, though, the program included four adults, all Highlander grads who’d been working at the school in various roles, including as Teaching Assistants. For them, this practicum provided real-life experience that concretizes the more abstract lessons of the academic teacher-preparation classes they need for full certification.
Highland has 86% kids of color, so recruiting diverse participants was a non-issue.
For a few years, the school had been discussing their own workforce diversification. Then, in June 2023, the Rhode Island Foundation awarded four grants to jumpstart practical solutions to infusing education with more diversity. The University of Rhode Island (URI) used its award to work with Highlander.
Dr. Diane Kern, interim director of URI’s School of Education, is the point person on this project. In an email, she identifies two “intertwined” goals. First, strengthen URI’s “Talent Development” program for urban students by establishing a direct pathway into their School of Education. Second, “establish a fully-approved Career and Technical Education credit-bearing pathway in education… to serve as an exemplar and model for the state.”
Trochez and social studies teacher Katherine Wilhelm are now adjunct professors, qualified to teach college-level education classes at Highlander’s middle and high school campus in Warren, during the school year. Kids sign up for the classes on the “e-campus” platform like any other URI student.
Highlander’s kids know these courses are harder than typical high-school classes. But dual enrollment, simultaneous enrollment in high school and college, helps students save money and time by earning college credits while still in high school. Wilhelm teaches a social justice course; Trochez teaches a course that prepares the adult student teachers to pass the English PRAXIS test required for full-fledged certification. That course also doubles as an English course for the high-school students.
Kids studying cars and erupting volcanoes needed to understand mass, velocity, thermodynamics. The graphic novels group studied how to build plot pyramids, thematic arcs and characters that would give life to their hardcopy stories.
During the school year, the Aspiring Educators take a bus from the Warren campus to teach at Highlander’s elementary school on Lexington Avenue in Providence.
Aspiring Teachers participating in the summer school program debrief for an hour at the end of the day. They trade tricks of the trade, but mostly they talk about how to handle unwanted behavior. Especially in the wake of COVID, unruly conduct drives many teachers out of the profession altogether.
“College doesn’t help much with that,” Trochez said. “Better to start learning about handling behavior in high school to overcome challenges before that three-year mark when most teachers leave the profession.”
On my summer tour, a rising junior whom we’ll call Alex, brightened visibly when asked about his Aspiring experience. “A kid came up to me and said ‘I’d love to have you as my teacher.’ That was great!” he said. Apparently, Alex was drifting away from school and academics until doing some teaching of his own got him tethered again.
Highlander’s new Superintendent, Simona Simpson-Thomas, cites Johns Hopkins research demonstrating the value of kids having at least one same-race teacher.
Teacher retirements and resignations are taking a serious toll on the national teaching workforce. What’s worse, perhaps, is that public opinion of teachers has soured, reducing the profession’s appeal.
Another challenge, which disproportionately impacts teachers of color, union contracts in traditional districts enforce LIFO, or Last in; First Out, during budget cuts. LIFO requires layoffs of the newest teachers, to protect veterans good and bad. Early-career teachers are more likely to be people of color and therefore most likely to be let go.
But whatever research or contracts say, in a country that will be majority minority in 2044, learning in a diverse environment is already a long-overdue must.
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