Benjamin Barton ’21

Generation Teach, Denver, CO

I am incredibly grateful to have had the opportunity to work with Generation Teach in Denver, Colorado this summer. I learned so much about the field of education, the city of Denver, and my own abilities. More than anything, I had a whole lot of fun. My position as a Teaching Fellow can perhaps be summarized by two seemingly conflicting forces: independence and support. Before touching on these, however, it seems prudent to discuss Generation Teach itself.

One-on-one instruction during a Social Studies lesson.
One-on-one instruction during a Social Studies lesson.

Generation Teach is an organization that works to simultaneously train future teachers and support students in the communities where it operates by providing them an educational summer experience. Generation Teach also intently focuses on educational inequity, highlighting disparities in educational opportunities during the teacher training so that we—the potential future teachers—are aware of the flaws and biases of the system we may well encounter. Furthermore, Teaching Fellows come from incredibly different backgrounds, and the community was (genuinely, not just nominally) quite diverse. The focus on inequity also shines through in the curriculum, which professional teachers develop. Specifically in Social Studies, the subject that I taught, the curriculum discusses current events and issues, such as police brutality, criminal justice overall, and immigration reform—attempting to put them in historical context and understand their causes and potential effect. All of this makes what students are learning at Generation Teach relevant and exciting, hopefully inspiring more interest in school overall.

Each Teaching Fellow at Generation Teach offers two courses: one core class and one elective of their own design. In addition to this, Teaching Fellows have supervisory duties (recess, lunch, etc.) and planning responsibilities for one event or field trip. I taught sixth grade Social Studies and an elective on Lyrics and Songwriting, as I play guitar and write songs in my free time. Both of these were challenging and rewarding in their own regard.

The Social Studies curriculum that I taught was already designed for us. So, essentially, Teaching Fellows were given a Google Drive folder with lesson plans for each day. This was incredibly helpful, as it alleviated much of the stress of lesson preparation. However, the challenge was individualizing each lesson, supplementing or detracting to fit what I wanted the kids to take away from each day in my classroom. Two particularly powerful lessons have remained with me. The first, a lesson on privilege, had students move to a random seat in the classroom before attempting to throw a crumpled-up piece of paper into the recycling bin. This, along with the following discussion, taught the students about how your starting position in life enables you or hinders your success. This led into a side discussion of how society even defines success—conversations I certainly didn’t have in any formal setting until college. Secondly, a lesson discussing the challenges for people post-incarceration. This lesson brought forward a lot of powerful stories from students about their family members or acquaintances that were system-involved. This experience was really humbling for me and further emphasized some of the struggles my students were dealing with.

My main experience of independence was with through my elective: I designed curriculum, lesson, and structure for the entirety of the course, with little or no requirements imposed. This allowed me to really take on the entire challenge of teaching and creating a course, without very high stakes. The main challenge I faced was that I really have no idea how to teach someone how to write a song, nor do I really have any way to explain my own songwriting process. Nonetheless, students created some incredible work, and we did some really fun activities. Our final project, for example, was a The Voice style performance in which other teachers came in and “judged” songs that students had written. (They turned around for everyone.) This type of freedom and creativity is certainly not found in a traditional school setting, which is simply another thing to love about Generation Teach.

The 6th Grade Social Studies team posing with capes with good attributes written on them.
The 6th Grade Social Studies team posing with capes with good attributes written on them.

While Social Studies was certainly more prescribed to me than created by me, I still was granted a great deal of independence in the teaching process. For starters, as the head teacher in the classroom and not just an assistant, how exactly I presented the material was ultimately my decision. Further, the provided lesson plans served really as suggestions; I could alter them as I wish and supplement them with videos, New York Times articles, or even once a Childish Gambino song. In this way, each Social Studies class was taught differently, depending on the teacher.

The most obvious support system at Generation Teach is the coaching system, which allowed me to work with Ms. Lesley, a professional teacher and an incredible woman whom I thank endlessly. Ms. Lesley met with me every day to discuss lesson planning, teaching styles, and most importantly classroom management. I had one particular student whose preferred activity was hitting other students with her flip-flops. I am not sure how I would have navigated that without Ms. Lesley’s guidance.

Beyond that support network, Teaching Fellows at Generation Teach truly become somewhat of a family. In the prep room, the Social Studies team was always chatting: be it about lesson plans, classroom management, or just blowing off steam with a quick YouTube break. Being able to work with so many incredible peers was an equally important support system for me. Ultimately, the most valuable aspect of Generation Teach for me was being put into situations I had no idea how to deal with (such as flip-flop girl), struggling with them by myself, and ultimately being able to resolve them with an unbelievable group of professionals and peers.

Another aspect of support at Generation Teach is the exposure to professional educational opportunities. While Generation Teach itself does not lead to any sort of licensure, Teaching Fellows meet with teachers from the host district for a discussion about getting into teaching. This comes in the form of a “Career Night” where about 25 professional teachers hold a panel and then more individualized conversations. As such, while Generation Teach itself could not lead directly to an employment opportunity, I certainly met valuable contacts for the future. Ultimately, while as a sophomore I’m unsure of whether I’d like to go into teaching, perhaps a fellow Teaching Fellow put it best in her reflection on the program: “It’s nice to know that I can do a thing.”

Generation Teach was an invaluable experience for me that I would not have been able to do without the support of this Education Internship. I would like to thank the Williams College ’68 Center for Career 
Exploration for this opportunity and Ms. Dawn Dellea for guiding me through the application process. I am incredibly grateful to everyone who helped make my summer at Generation Teach possible.