About Me or What Am I Doing Here

10.15.09 By Stephanie Wingfield

WHO:  My name is Stephanie Wingfield.  I’m a member of the 2009-2010 BTR class, also known as BTR Cohort 7.  I am a Teacher Resident at the Hyde Park High School Complex, located in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Boston.  My primary academic area is math.  I teach mostly pre-calculus to seniors and juniors.  My secondary academic area is ESL (English as a Second Language), which I teach primarily to 10th graders.

INSPIRATION TO TEACH:  I’ve always loved learning.  In my previous lives, I have been a musician, an architect and a lawyer.  At each stage of my life, I’ve been made keenly aware of the tremendous value of choices.  Without them, opportunities for growth, fulfillment, and success are limited.  Barring extraordinary talent or luck or wealth, the most reliable path towards enhanced opportunity is through educational competence and achievement.  Consequently, my motivation to teach comes from my desire to expand opportunities for those who need them most—the young people who attend Boston Public Schools.  As well-stated by one of my BTR instructors, “Without teachers, there wouldn’t be any other professions.”  I like math, too. In my spare time, I love to play music, eat good food, and hang-out with friends and loved ones, including my 2 music-loving, geriatric Jack Russell Terriers.

WHAT:  Boston Teacher Residency (BTR) is a joint effort of the Boston Plan for Excellence and the Boston Public Schools (BPS).  BTR recruits “talented people from diverse backgrounds” who are committed to becoming urban teachers and places them in a year-long, school-based residency.  During the residency, BTR residents work closely with a mentor teacher, spend 4 days a week in a classroom and take specialized courses on Fridays, after-school and over two summers that are tailored to BPS reform goals. BTR graduates earn a MA Initial Teacher License in their primary academic area, partial credit toward dual licensure in special education or ESL (English as a Second Language), and a master’s degree in education from UMass Boston.  The costs of the program are forgiven through a 3-year commitment to teach in the BPS.  In an effort to ease the transition from “new teacher"to “effective teacher,” BTR’s mentoring of graduates continues through their first 3 years of teaching.

WHY:  Like many other urban school districts in the US, BPS faces a human capacity gap.  Through BTR, BPS seeks to interrupt the cycle of high teacher turnover and raise the quality and consistency of new teachers.  Over 200 BTR residents are currently teaching in BPS.  Seventy residents are in the 2009-2010 BTR class.