This story was originally published by The Daily Yonder.

Throughout rural America, non-native English speakers are less likely than their urban peers to get proper support in school, sometimes leading to a lifetime of lower educational attainment. But some rural schools are developing multilingual education strategies to rival those found in urban and suburban districts.

In general, it’s easier to fund more diverse course offerings in bigger schools. From Advanced Placement U.S. History to Spanish immersion, more students means more funding. But in rural DuBois County, Indiana, administrators are prioritizing English-learner education. There, students have access to “gold standard” multilingual programming, a hard-won achievement for any U.S. school, but especially for such a small district.

“We are the only school in the region who started a dual language program,” said Rossina Sandoval, Southwest DuBois County School District’s director of community engagement, in an interview with the Daily Yonder.

To meet the gold standard, students in the dual language immersion program receive 50 percent of their instruction in English and 50 percent of their instruction in Spanish. Fifty percent of the program is made up of students whose native language is Spanish and the other half is made up of native English speakers. The program is currently offered from kindergarten through third grade, with plans to expand to fourth and fifth grade.

By developing a program with 50/50 language instruction and 50/50 student enrollment, students are able to not only learn both their native and target language from their teachers, but they are also able to learn from each other, Sandoval said.

“That has proven to be the most effective way to develop language skills,” she said.

When the program was first introduced, the school received pushback from both Spanish-speaking and English-speaking families. Spanish-speaking families felt the school should prioritize English learning, given that their children already speak Spanish at home. And English-speaking families worried that they wouldn’t be able to help their children with Spanish homework.

To address family concerns on both sides, the school shared information about the benefits of formal bilingual education. In addition to maintaining their conversational skills, Spanish-speaking students receive instruction in grammar, spelling and reading in their native language. This approach helps students who already speak another language read and write in another language, too.

Learning two languages does not hurt a student’s ability to master either one. Bilingual children are shown to have better focus and logical reasoning, and — according to Sandoval — will be suited to a wider range of opportunities in the workforce.

“It’s natural, we want the best for our kids,” she said. “The best we can do is educate the community as a whole that this is the best method to develop multilingualism, this is the best method to enhance global skills and produce global citizens.”

Intersecting Problems

The Latino population in DuBois County has been expanding for decades. Today it sits at 9.5 percent, which is approximately half the national percentage. But in Southwest DuBois County schools, more than a third of students identify as Latino. (The disparity in those numbers reflects higher birth rates within the Latino population and the uneven distribution of those families within the county.)

The demographics of rural schools have been changing nationwide. According to a recent report from the National Rural Education Association, 80,000 more English-learner and multilingual students were enrolled in rural districts in the 2021 school year than in 2013.

Historically, rural school districts have struggled to provide high-quality education to non-native English speakers. When English-learner populations are small, it can be difficult to fund robust bilingual programming and easy to overlook their necessity.

Rural English learners sit at the intersection of overlapping structural problems in public education. The national teacher shortage is worse in nonmetropolitan places, and it’s most problematic in racially diverse and high-poverty rural schools. Nationally, there aren’t enough bilingual educators, or educators certified to teach English as a second language (ESL).

According to recent research, while English-learner populations are growing in rural places, rural multilingual learners are less likely to receive instruction in their native languages. And while federal guidelines require that all non-native English speakers receive specialized instruction, in rural places only a little more than 60 percent actually do.

DuBois County’s top-tier bilingual education program should be used as a model in other rural school districts, Sandoval said: “As an immigrant, as a U.S. citizen, I feel very proud … because this can be replicated in communities that look like ours.”

Support for these programs must be built inside and outside the schoolhouse, Sandoval said: “There has to be a degree of openness toward bilingualism or multilingualism. This is an effort that’s not just made by me, it’s made by the school and by the community.”

Programs that increase accessibility and trust with parents include “Cafe en el Parque,” a parent meeting held in Spanish that draws in more than100 families each month, and the “Emergent Bilingual” program, which meets after school and on weekends helps new immigrant students and families learn more about how the American education system works.

Programs that help establish community support and participation include “Fuertes Together,” a partnership with the public library where families can hear stories in Spanish and English and engage with cultural music, dance and art. And a new program, “Bilingual Village,” helps bilingual students identify speaking partners in the community who can converse in the student’s new language.

A Wide Range of Strategies

When Esmeralda Cruz was a child in the 1990s, she immigrated with her family from Mexico to rural Clinton County, Indiana, where she lives and works today. “Back then,” she said, “there were not a lot of Latino families in the area. In my first grade classroom I only had one classmate that was bilingual.” This posed major challenges to her education: Esmeralda said that, instead of receiving proper language instruction, she was placed in classes meant to address learning disabilities.

Cruz’s experience is not unique, according to Maria Coady, professor of multilingual education at North Carolina State University. In places that aren’t accustomed to supporting immigrant populations, she’s seen English learners sent to speech therapy in place of proper ESL classes. “Schools might think that all these kids have special learning needs because it looks like they’re not learning,” she said, “when in fact, they’re just learning the language.”

As immigrant populations grow throughout the rural U.S., newcomers often find themselves in Cruz’s childhood position — navigating school districts unaccustomed to educating non-native English speakers.

Today, Cruz works as a Hispanic community engagement director for Purdue Extension. Prior to that, she was the health and human sciences educator at Purdue Extension office in Clinton County, Indiana.

According to scholars of rural multilingual education, schools that do have ESL or bilingual systems in place exist across a broad spectrum, from gold-standard bilingual education programs like the one in DuBois County to ESL sessions that require students to miss part of the school day and provide no native-language instruction.

In places with very small English-learner populations, Coady said, schools might pool resources and “bring in an itinerant teacher — that is, a teacher who might travel between several rural schools to provide ESL services.”

This is the least effective method of multilingual education for two reasons, Coady said: It’s disruptive to pull students out of class, and ESL teachers are only able to offer very limited amounts of time to individual students.

Where to Begin?

In rural places, small expansions in local industries that rely heavily on immigrant and migrant labor can create major shifts in student populations, said Holly Hansen-Thomas, professor of bilingual education at Texas Woman’s University: “And these teachers may not have the experience or the background to serve these emergent bilingual families that keep coming to work and to support the industry.”

For rural school districts inexperienced in providing multilingual education, said Hansen-Thomas, professional development is the place to begin.

Federal grants are available to support multilingual certifications for teachers and administrators. For instance, the National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition offers a National Professional Development Program, which makes grants to colleges and universities to fund work on multilingual teaching skills for local educators. Hansen-Thomas also points to the U.S. Department of Education’s “Newcomer Tool Kit,” a resource for rural educators looking to support recent-immigrant students and families.

In Indiana, colleges and universities are attempting to build manageable pathways for multilingual educators who might not be formally trained as teachers. “Our pre-service teachers tend to be white and monolingual,” said Stephanie Oudghiri, clinical associate professor at Purdue’s College of Education. “Especially in the Midwest, as our demographics are changing, we need folks that are multilingual.”

Experts like Cruz stress the importance of listening to non-native English speakers themselves when building out these programs. “We’ve had a lot of focus groups and community conversations and I can’t tell you how many times people at the table have said, ‘Thank you for including me,’” Cruz said.

“I think oftentimes they do want to be at the table, they just don’t know how, and so we’re making sure that we’re listening to them and then going from there, rather than the other way around.”

© Rido / Shutterstock

What if why you choose to become a teacher determines how successful you will be in the role?

Society has always been fascinated to learn about the motivations of famous athletes, entertainers, and politicians and how they came to their profession. We think about their career trajectory and consider its relevance to ourselves or people we know. What if, similarly, we learned about the motivations of aspiring K-12 teachers, and used that to predict how effective they will be and how long they will stay in the classroom?

Persistent concerns reiterate teacher shortages throughout the nation. Recent evidence has also pointed to declining interest in becoming a teacher, aligned with the decreased professionalization, prestige and pay of the sector. Yet noble individuals press forward and choose to educate our children anyway. Why, in spite of the headwinds, do they become teachers?

As professors and researchers in university teaching and learning programs, we’re fascinated by this question. We figured that learning more about teacher motivation could help us better understand teacher pipelines and find ways to diversify and improve the quality of our nation’s teachers, so we designed a study to gather more information.

From 2012-2018, nearly 2,800 preservice teachers within one of the largest teacher preparation programs in Texas responded to an essay prompt, “Explain why you decided to become a teacher.” We used a natural language processing algorithm to review their responses.

Historically, people went into teaching for relatively straightforward reasons: They desired a stable career, enjoyed having summers off, or had family members who were teachers. However, across the essay responses, we found that those motivations were not the most prevalent, nor were they related to teacher outcomes — but others were.

Studying Preservice Teacher Motivations

Previously, researchers have primarily looked at in-service teacher motivations. Rather than learning from someone who is already in the profession, we wanted to learn from those who have yet to enter the profession. This better informs our understanding of how to get someone interested in teaching to then aid recruitment.

Using machine learning to process the thousands of open-ended essay responses, we identified 10 broad reasons for why preservice teachers want to become teachers.

The two most frequent drivers were altruism (the desire to do selfless good) and intrinsic motivation (an enjoyment of teaching, helping or interacting with students or children). Other interesting but less frequently cited motivations include the impact of prior teachers, love of a content area, and a family connection to teaching.

Interestingly, motivations differed by preservice teachers’ characteristics, such as race and ethnicity, gender, family income and certification.

For instance, individuals seeking their elementary certification were more likely to enjoy working with children, whereas middle and high school preservice teachers were interested in teaching a particular content area. Relatedly, men were less likely than women to report that they had “always wanted to teach.” This suggests that background characteristics can shape motivations to become a teacher.

Further, and more importantly, we found that some teacher motivations were related to better teacher outcomes. While altruism was the most frequent answer given, it wasn’t the one most strongly correlated with effectiveness.

Specifically, preservice teachers who shared that they were intrinsically motivated to teach and had experienced some adversity within schools were found to be both more effective educators and less likely to leave the classroom prematurely. Individuals who had these two motivating factors had a significant and positive correlation with their clinical teaching observation scores, and were less likely to leave the K-12 public school system within their first several years of entry.

Though these were modest effects, the fact that written self-reports of teaching motivation had even some significance with these outcomes is noteworthy. Motivations are no longer just interesting; they can be consequential.

From Motivations to Marketing

By better understanding teacher motivations, we can learn more about who could succeed in the profession. More precisely, we want to find individuals who are intrinsically motivated to teach or have overcome adversity within education spaces.

These future teachers could be like the following study participant who expressed how adversity and the impact of prior teachers motivated them to become a teacher:

“The statistics are stacked against someone with my background. Living in an impoverished neighborhood and struggling to learn English as my second language, and a daughter of Mexican immigrant parents who didn’t even get to finish primary school … I was fortunate to have many teachers who became my role models … I want to pay forward what my teachers did for me.”

How can we get these kinds of people into the classroom?

First, states need to consider long-term solutions to teacher shortages, including finding and nudging motivated individuals into educator preparation programs. Policymakers could invest in early teaching opportunities such as tutoring programs or summer programs with an explicit design to encourage individuals to consider careers in education and teaching (consider Breakthrough Collaborative as an example).

Second, teacher preparation programs need to prioritize strategic marketing, particularly in places where intrinsic motivation for teaching occurs more naturally (think: high schools, college campuses and child care centers).

Third, school districts could consider teacher motivations as part of their hiring process. Considering all else equal, it may be worth gaining insight into applicants’ interest in teaching, since our research indicates some motivations lead to more effective and longer tenured teachers than others.

Through these recommendations, classrooms across the nation can begin to utilize teacher motivations to enhance student learning.

© Jacob Lund / Shutterstock

As Black womxn educators, we have a connection with education that is ancestral. Even before enslavement, teaching and learning existed in Africa. African communities built cities, states and kingdoms. Africans were skilled laborers, mathematicians and astronomers. Creativity, learning and innovation flourished in African communities, and that heritage lives in African descendants, especially apparent in the way we teach and radically care for our students.

A question Black womxn educators must ask themselves when centering their healing is who you are and where you come from? It’s important to consider how who we are and where we come intersect with how we show up in the classroom. The period of enslavement in our nation highlights Black people’s determination to learn and actualize the opportunities education provides.

This is still a prevalent theme for Black womxn in education. How we care for our students is inextricably linked with how our ancestors cared for others, the children who were theirs and those who weren’t. Healing affinity spaces for Black women teachers are necessary for us to not only honor our ancestors but also honor ourselves and carry on this important tradition of education and learning.

With EdSurge Research and the Abolitionist Teaching Network, we piloted a model for healing affinity spaces centering Black women’s healing while being in community with one another. As the facilitator of those spaces, I will share what I felt and heard from my peers within the healing circles and how impactful this experience was for everyone involved.

We learned that healing is relational, communal, values-aligned, intersectional, restoration, and necessary for Black women educators. The resounding consensus from these 30 Black women teachers and school leaders is that they need affinity group spaces for respite, to connect with one another, and to relinquish the burdens of trauma in an affirming and empathetic environment.

What Research Says About Black Women Teachers and Healing

Healing affinity spaces for Black women teachers are necessary for us to not only honor our ancestors but also honor ourselves and carry on this important tradition of education and learning.

In a study examining the effects of trauma on Black women educators, researchers Abiola Farinde Wu, Adam Alvarez and Nina Kunimoto uncovered ancestral connections embedded in Black women’s teaching styles. They assert that the “lifeline” of Black women’s conscious and subconscious practices is rooted in African spirituality – that is, Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa and other African ethnic groups trafficked from Africa to American shores during the Middle Passage.

The idea of healing circles is not new. As Jennifer Richardson describes in her research on the nexus between Black women educators’ self-care and transformational learning for students, Black women have organized healing circles in various forms.

In “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen: The Emotional Lives of Black Women”, clinical psychologist Inger Burnett-Ziegler uncovers an alarming estimation: 80 percent of Black women have experienced trauma in their lifetime. This includes several forms of trauma, like intergenerational, childhood, abusive relationships and pregnancy trauma.

In her book, “The Spirit of Our Work: Black Women Teachers (Re)member”, Cynthia Dillard explains how the legacy of imperialism and the enslavement of our ancestors endures in teaching and learning; yet, it’s presumed that Black folks “just happened to be here,” to be enslaved.

This residue was apparent in our healing circles—few participants elaborated on what Dillard calls “unmentionable and multiple oppressions.” But they didn’t need to. Instead, they bonded around what Dillard names the “spirit of Black women teachers.”

Healing Is Communal

bell hooks reminds us in “All About Love” that rarely, if ever, are any of us healed in isolation. Teaching is a profession that, for Black womxn educators, can feel particularly isolating. With roughly 79% of teachers in the United States being white, Black womxn educators are more often than not the only Black teacher in their school and, for some, their entire district:

"I feel like the community has gotten lost because of COVID, and you can see the behaviors have become more extreme in the classroom, and kids seem more disconnected from their families in a way that I haven't seen before. And it's not just because we are overworked. I think that is the case, too. I just try very hard in my center of control. I can make my classroom feel like a community. And now that I'm a vice principal, I can work really hard to make my school feel like a community. I can't really impact what's happening in the district yet, but I can do what I can in my little nucleus."

Healing affinity spaces allow Black womxn teachers to break down those silos and build community with other Black educators, and in turn, build community in their schools. An affinity space like this can be the first time that some Black womxn teachers get to experience acceptance, care, shared knowledge and affirmation.

For some of us, just knowing that we have a community of Black womxn who will listen and support us is healing. Understanding that the turnover rate is higher for Black teachers for reasons like stress, burnout and racial politics. Knowing that you are not alone is necessary to build a sustainable career in teaching, especially as a Black womxn. Healing affinity spaces offer that opportunity.

Healing Is Values-Aligned

As Black womxn educators, coming together to define our values allows us to name for ourselves who we are and who we want to be in our classrooms, schools and districts.

Researchers have connected the knowledge and values of Black feminism with culturally congruent mental health resources for Black women. It is known that “traditional healers have laid the foundation for how Black women engage in a process of healing that intentionally centers the whole person.”

Our values are the things, the ideals that we hold most important. We carry the values we have everywhere we go, including our classrooms, schools, and districts. We do not hold separate values for work and home — we are who we are, and we bring our whole person everywhere we show up.

When asked to identify your values, you may begin to list a core set of values or beliefs you hold. As Black womxn educators, it is important for us to identify our core values. Those values guide our actions, behaviors, and our decisions. When we live in our core values as Black womxn educators, it becomes more than just an individual investment. We influence our classrooms, schools, and districts. This integrity moves us from individual to collective or communal healing.

A middle school teacher shared how her values compete with her capacity to care for her own mental well-being while caring for her students from underserved communities in Georgia:

"My values are advocacy and mental health. And when you spend a lot of your time and your energy advocating for others, it sometimes completely smashes your mental health."

This same teacher described how she prioritized time to attend the healing circle because “she needed it.” These spaces offered both a place to reflect on how their values mirror the multi-dimensional humans they are while sharing reciprocal affirmation with one another.

Healing spaces allow Black womxn teachers to identify the core values that guide their decisions, actions, and behaviors inside and outside the classroom. When we recognize our core values, we align with Black feminist strategies for healing by defining ourselves. Patricia Hill Collins states that a “self-defined Black women’s consciousness” is a hidden space in Black women that allows them to affirm, cope, and “transcend the confines of intersecting oppressions.” As Black womxn educators, coming together to define our values allows us to name for ourselves who we are and who we want to be in our classrooms, schools and districts.

Healing Is Intersectional

When we approach the idea of healing, we must examine it through a racial, gendered and pedagogical lens. Our intersecting identities contribute to our teaching, learning, and how we show up in the classroom and our healing. Using an intersectional lens allows us to understand how race, gender, sexuality, and class play out in our role as teachers and in our healing.

This intersectional approach is necessary to combat the matrix of domination Black women educators exist within, particularly those who teach in historically excluded communities with predominantly Black and Brown students.

For many Black womxn educators, the reality is that they don’t feel respected or empowered in their school communities. Our participants’ sentiments around trauma echo that. Healing affinity spaces represent safety for Black womxn educators to emote about their experiences with racism, whiteness, and white privilege.

Safe Spaces

The idea of creating “safe spaces” is well-intentioned but sometimes becomes a dystopian anomaly lacking capacity for multiple truths and ways of being, especially for people with multiple marginalized identities. Hence, the birth and life of Black feminism — nuanced and distinct from feminism and groups like the Combahee River Collective. That’s why we were excited to receive feedback from some participants that they genuinely felt seen and heard:

“It was a safe space.”

"It was a space for real and raw conversations.”

These were two of several responses to our discussions around our intersectional identities in a predominantly white profession. We drew connections between unhealthy narratives we were taught about being a Black womxn in predominantly white spaces.

Teaching is an already stressful job, and when we combine the intersectional identities that Black womxn teachers hold, it can become unbearable. Identifying and healing the wounds of intersectional oppression allows Black womxn educators to begin then to work to dismantle those same oppressions for their students.

Healing Is Restoration

Education is a field that barely allows time to do the essentials related to the job, let alone time for Black womxn teachers to restore their minds and bodies. Self-care is nothing more than a buzzword when used by our districts. Caring for yourself in the space that is causing you harm is impossible. My facilitation of this space came at a time when I had experienced physical harm at my previous school. I was keenly aware of how meaningful this restoration was for me and the students, staff and teachers directly impacted by the participants in this affinity space. When we heal ourselves and restore ourselves, it widens our capacity to give compassion to others, especially our students.

When we heal ourselves and restore ourselves, it widens our capacity to give compassion to others, especially our students.

Black womxn often put everyone above themselves, and the role of teacher is no different. Researchers have distinguished an ethic of care associated with Black women’s motherwork. Black womxn teachers exhibit this style of “othermothering.” We take on the role of othermothers, similarly to our ancestral mothers for our students as a survival mechanism. It is imperative to not just their survival, but to ours, as well. It is easy to forget to practice self-love and rest as we take on these multiple responsibilities.

There were many reflections by participants on rest and relationships with rest. One participant, a new teacher from Texas, said the inspiration to teach came from her Black seventh grade teacher, who studied computer science at an HBCU. Like her teacher, she returned to her neighborhood to teach in her community and hopefully make a similar impact on her students. Amidst her passion, she shared how she the tension between her values around family and the energy she puts into her work, especially because of the connection to the community she teaches in:

"Restoring ourselves means we must prioritize rest, and healing spaces remind us to do just that."

Restoring ourselves means we must prioritize rest, and healing spaces remind us to do just that.

Healing Is Necessary

When we asked for anonymous feedback after each session, we received overwhelming consensus from our participants that the 90 minutes they spent in community with other Black women educators felt restorative, affirming and necessary.

"It was EXACTLY what I needed. I listen to and support other people all day, every day, and the only support I get comes from me. I understand that others may not have the capacity to support me but it's just nice to experience it every now and again."

Imagine providing healing affinity spaces to early-career Black women teachers, instilling them with tools to create sustainable healing practices during their time as an education professional. I would argue that if school districts are genuine in their desire to recruit Black teachers, they also need to be genuine in their efforts to retain Black educators by creating affinity spaces where they feel safe, build relationships and community, address intersecting identities, and ultimately, heal.

Education is a service to the community — a service I know many Black womxn teachers take seriously. During these sessions, I witnessed compassion. bell hooks tells us that “compassion opens the way for individuals to feel empathy for others without judgment.” Healing opens the door to compassion for our students and their families. Healing for Black womxn educators who take on the role as othermothers for their students is necessary for their retention in the classroom.

© Salim Hanzaz / Shutterstock

With interest in the teaching profession waning and enrollment in teacher preparation programs reaching historic lows, all eyes are on the next crop of students — tomorrow’s prospective educators — to make up the deficit.

Today’s high school and college students are part of Generation Z, a group of people who range in age from 12 to 28, and have characteristics, attitudes and aspirations that distinguish them from prior generations.

In partnership with researchers at Vanderbilt University, the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB), a nonprofit that works to improve public education across 16 states in the Southeast, has been examining the next generation’s interest in the teaching profession and has published their findings in a report released in April.

Using extensive student survey data from ACT, a nonprofit assessment organization, along with state-level educator data and interviews with Gen Z teacher candidates and newly hired teachers, the researchers gained insight into Gen Z’s perceptions and motivations around teaching and identified opportunities to attract more of them into the field.

Though the study concentrates on two “data-rich” states, Kentucky and Tennessee, researchers say their findings are consistent with what one might expect to see nationally.

“A lot of trends in Kentucky and Tennessee mirror the trends in the South and across the nation,” says Megan Boren, project manager at SREB and a co-author of the report — with the caveat that teacher shortages are generally more severe in the South than in other parts of the U.S.

Gen Z is more college-going and tech-savvy than its predecessors. It is more racially and ethnically diverse. And according to a literature review conducted by the researchers, Americans who are part of Gen Z say they want jobs that provide financial security and ongoing support, along with flexibility, autonomy, collaboration and a sense of purpose.

Some of those characteristics are consistent with careers in education. Teaching, many would argue, is one of the most meaningful jobs available. It is not, however, known for its flexibility or pay.

As a result, members of Gen Z are less interested in becoming teachers than earlier generations. Enrollment in preparation programs began to dip around 2010, but it hit new lows once the first members of Gen Z (colloquially referred to as Zoomers) entered higher education in 2014, researchers found.

The decline has become worse in the decade since, says Thomas Smith, professor of public policy and education at Vanderbilt and an author of the report.

Drawing on ACT data from the eight Southern states that require or pay for high schoolers to take the test, Smith and his colleagues found that, between 2013 and 2022, interest steadily dwindled. Because it was already minimal to begin with, the researchers say, this is a worrying trend.

“In our country, the best avenue that students have to excel, to achieve and to be part of this workforce is through education,” says Stephen Pruitt, president of SREB. “So if we don’t have the people who are able to teach our students, it’s going to be a severe cap on what people are able to do.”

There are ways to turn that trend around, Boren and Smith believe.

In the study, they found that participation in introductory high school teaching courses in Kentucky and Tennessee was increasing. It’s possible, they say, that the emergence of those classes has prevented even steeper declines among those entering the field, and that cultivating an early interest in education is key to building a strong pipeline. (It’s also possible, Smith adds, that such courses are popular because they are seen as “easier.”)

Data from the annual Tennessee Educator Survey found that more than half of early-career teachers entered college “already sure or pretty sure” that they wanted to go into education.

“That leads us to keep thinking about what can be done early on to get people hooked on teaching as a profession,” says Smith.

Gen Z is looking for flexibility. Teaching has not traditionally been a flexible job.

— Thomas Smith

Boren agrees that early exposure could be a critical route for getting more people into educator preparation programs and, ultimately, classrooms.

“Teaching is less attractive than maybe it once was,” she acknowledges. “Parents are not encouraging their children to go into teaching. Sometimes teachers aren’t encouraging students to go into teaching. If we were able to turn that narrative around and introduce the wonderfulness of teaching to students early on, give them a taste of it — perhaps that can be one of the many ways we can get more folks into the classroom.”

Still, that tactic doesn’t solve the many downsides to teaching that Gen Z sees: rigid scheduling, isolation in classrooms, low compensation, lack of autonomy, and a lack of respect, appreciation and professionalization from the public.

“Gen Z is looking for flexibility,” Smith says. “Teaching has not traditionally been a flexible job.”

It’s a difficult reality, especially when many other jobs have only become more flexible since the pandemic; hybrid and remote working arrangements have stuck around in other sectors.

It’s not just about remote work, though, Boren says. “The way things have always been done is not attractive to Gen Z.” They want work-life balance. They want to incorporate “innovative technology use,” she says.

Boren says there are “hundreds” of examples of schools creatively building flexibility into the workday and work week for teachers.

One strategy is hiring additional support staff, allowing teachers to have guaranteed planning time or freeing them up to walk down the hall and observe a colleague teach a lesson. That lends itself to both flexibility and support, she notes. Boren shared about a district that opens one hour late on Wednesdays so staff can run errands or otherwise get that time back for themselves. She also mentioned a school in Oklahoma that worked with the community to set a schedule that allows teachers to have every Friday off work in April and May, when the weather is nice and morale may be slipping toward the end of the school year.

“A little bit of give and take is really what folks are asking for,” she says.

Those examples, so far, are sparing. Pruitt, the SREB president and a former teacher, concedes that in most places, trying to make any changes to the structure of the school day or week is going to be met with resistance.

“We’re in the same model we’ve been using since the 1800s,” he says, underscoring the challenge.

Members of Gen Z also want to be a part of work that is collaborative, which exists in pockets of the profession but is “not a strong tradition in teaching,” Smith says. “There’s much more of a tradition of being on your own in your class with your door closed.”

The relationship with students — along with the impact on young people and, by extension, society — is attractive to members of Gen Z, Boren and Smith say. It also aligns with what EdSurge has found in interviews with early-career teachers and teacher candidates who are part of Gen Z.

Yet a sense of purpose alone clearly isn’t sufficient to compel enough young people into the field.

Some members of Gen Z may have seen firsthand, as students, that their teachers were not given the support, tools or appreciation they needed to be successful, Smith notes. Others may have internalized negative narratives and perceptions of teaching that others share.

“Those messages are being picked up by lots of folks, and certainly Gen Z included,” says Smith. “It’s not doing us any favors to get more teachers.”

© insta_photos / Shutterstock

Viridiana Martinez’s family immigrated twice when she was in elementary school — once, from Mexico to Canada, and a second time to the United States. With each move, she had to learn a new language and adjust to a different culture.

During those transitions, Martinez was both challenged and uplifted, often by kind teachers and mentors whom she met at school.

Now a college graduate, the 21-year-old is channeling her lived experiences into a career path.

This fall, Martinez will become a bilingual teacher for students in kindergarten through eighth grade in Morgan Hill, a small city near San Jose, California, as part of the next Teach for America cohort. Her teacher training begins in June.

Martinez knows that there is a dearth of bilingual teachers in the United States, and she wants to help fill the gap. But more than that, she wants to encourage bilingual students and English language learners the way other teachers did for her. Along the way, she says, she wants to help students identify their strengths and find their voices.

At a time when the teaching profession is in decline, with fewer young people entering the field, EdSurge is following individuals pursuing careers in the classroom anyway. What motivates them? What worries them? And why are they undeterred?

In our Future Teachers series, we ask these questions to aspiring educators on the cusp of entering the classroom. In this installment, we’re featuring Martinez.

The following interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

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Name: Viridiana Martinez

Age: 21

Current town: Berkeley, California

College: University of California, Berkeley

Intends to teach: Bilingual education in a K-8 school

Hometown: Monterrey, Mexico

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EdSurge: What is your earliest memory of a teacher?

Viridiana Martinez: The earliest memory I have of a teacher is my first grade teacher in Mexico. She was stern, but also very loving. She always had very high expectations of her students, and that is something that I really appreciated about her. She believed her students could achieve great things.

Viridiana Martinez with her first grade teacher in Monterrey, Mexico. (Photo courtesy of Martinez)

When did you realize that you might want to become a teacher?

I worked in an elementary school as part of my education minor at the University of California, Berkeley, during my junior year, and I think that had a great impact on me. I would have one-on-one sessions with students so they could practice and enhance their reading skills and fluency. I really enjoyed working with my students, and seeing them improve made me feel super proud of them. I’ve wanted to go into the teaching profession ever since then.

That would’ve been in college for you. What had you been thinking you might want to do before that?

Before, I wanted to study psychology … but I didn't know exactly what path I wanted to take. Then, as I added my education and child development minors, [my classes] sparked my interest in going into teaching. I didn't have a specific plan or career picked out previously. I was just kind of going with the flow, really.

I knew that I wanted to work with children. I just didn't know what profession yet. Teaching did cross my mind. Then, as I went through this experience and started working with students, it solidified for me that I definitely wanted to become a teacher.

Did you ever reconsider?

I don't think so. I went through a lot of ideas of what careers I could go into, but nothing really felt as fulfilling as teaching, so I stuck with it.

Did your own experiences in school have any influence on your decision to pursue this career?

Yeah. I attended schools in California that have predominantly Latino populations, and I did have a few Latino teachers that were able to help me learn English. I think that sense of community and support from my own teachers and counselors helped me decide that this was something that I wanted to do.

I understand that you had to learn a couple different languages as part of your schooling. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

I was born in Mexico and lived there until I was 7 years old. Then I moved to a French-speaking region in Canada with my family, so I had to learn French in addition to everything else that comes from moving countries. There was a shift in culture and in school.

Then, about three years later, my family and I moved again, to California, so I had to learn English and readjust all over again. I have been in California ever since.

Viridiana Martinez sees snow for the first time after moving with her family from Mexico to Canada. (Photo courtesy of Martinez)

Were there any teachers, coaches or counselors who helped you through those transitions that stand out to you?

Absolutely. I came to California when I was in fifth grade, and I had two teachers that were amazing. They always made me feel included in the classroom. They made sure that I had access to learning the language — for example, they labeled the items in the classroom for me in Spanish and English. And they explained my situation to the other students in the class so that they could understand the position I was in.

Were there other English language learners in your classes?

Not in fifth grade, but years later, when I was in middle school and high school, I did meet students who were just learning English as their second language.

Tell me about your decision to apply for Teach for America.

I heard about Teach for America during my last semester at UC Berkeley, and I thought it was a perfect step for me. I attended one of their in-person events and met multiple people who were part of the program and were able to answer my questions. I ended up applying shortly after attending the event. I chose this program because they offered great communication and support, which is exactly what I was looking for.

My goal is to become a full-time classroom teacher.

Why are you interested in teaching bilingual K-8 classes?

I am very passionate about teaching in bilingual classrooms. I [want to help students] overcome language barriers and cultural barriers. My experience moving countries twice and having to learn a new language twice has given me a lot of insight into what students go through and what I can do to help them to succeed in the classroom.

Why do you want to become a teacher?

I think that it is a very fulfilling profession. Everyone wants the next generations to excel in academics and be able to have a bright future. I want to make sure that the next generation has the right support [to succeed].

In college, during my experience [tutoring] at the elementary school, I had a student who inspired me. It wasn't until the end of our session, but we had a little survey for them with questions about how their sessions went, whether they felt like they learned anything, that sort of thing. One of the questions was what they wanted to do when they grow up, and this particular student said that they wanted to be a tutor just like me. That just really solidified it for me.

What gives you hope about becoming a teacher?

Just having an impact on the next generation is what gives me hope. I’m excited to show them what their strengths are, help them see that they can speak on their own and that they can make a difference if they believe in themselves.

What worries you or gives you pause about becoming a teacher?

I have heard that many teachers have noticed a big setback in students' math and reading skills since the pandemic. It was a very difficult time for both teachers and students, which unfortunately resulted in slower learning. My biggest worry is how this will actually play out in the classroom and what I can do to effectively support my students.

Why does the field need you right now?

We need more bilingual teachers. That is really important. There are so many schools that have students that are either currently trying to learn English as their second language or are bilingual. They deserve to have access to bilingual programs with bilingual teachers that can support them to excel academically. And I think that my own experiences will allow me to provide enriching bilingual classes to students.

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