You are an Educator - That Makes You Worthy

Alexandra Laing is A Worthy Educator and a Champion for bringing together educators around our common values and mission!

She is currently pursuing her passion as a STEAM Education Specialist with the Belize Ministry of Education, Culture, Science and Technology through the Peace Corps Response program.

It is easy to feel “less than” for the role in education that you play. It’s even easier to compare yourself to someone else in the field of education. False perspectives like: ideas without being in the classroom are devoid of experience, educational leaders are just after big paychecks and power, district leaders are out of touch with school challenges, consultants just can’t cut it in the real world, or the most important work is the work being done in schools are all lies that assault our sense of worth and undercut the value of the collective.

The education profession should not be a competition and valuing everyone for the critical role they play in support of each other is exactly the whole point. Please understand - this is not a devaluation of any one role or an attempt to compare the importance of one job over another. It is a celebration of the passions and skills of every single individual who have devoted any amount of their career to the education sector and followed their passions and purpose to meet critical needs and serve students. Let me say it loud: Being a teacher is hard work. Being an educational leader at any level is hard work. Bringing a wide variety of perspectives together for systemic change is hard work. Balancing political influences with practical action is hard work. Being an innovator in an institutionalized field is hard work. Lending your voice to the space of support and guidance as a consultant for an area in which you are an expert is hard work. Being a parent or a loving and supporting partner while you manage a career is hard work. And if we allow ourselves to start playing the game of comparisons, we only achieve isolation and degradation of others and the education profession as a whole.

The reality is that we NEED caring and passionate influence and support from all levels and all angles to effectively shape the educational sector in a way that supports the diverse needs of students, communities, and families. And different choices along your path open doors in different ways for different types of impact. So, if you’ll permit me, I’d like to share about how the doors I have walked through in my career in education have brought me to currently live abroad and serve as a Peace Corps Response Volunteer in Belize.

When I was in high school, I was never going to be a teacher. But as the adults around me asked what I wanted to do with my life, I began to realize that it was my teachers that helped me see myself differently. It was my teachers that encouraged my dreams and told me that my big ideas were possible. I realized that becoming a teacher was my path to have a large impact and make a difference in the world. With my parents, I selected a University in Virginia and enrolled in their teacher preparation program. I vividly remember a conversation I had with my dad one evening at the table. “You’re too smart to be a teacher,” he said. And he was simultaneously both completely correct and absolutely wrong. I am smart - I could be a lawyer or a doctor or anything I want, really. I could have chosen a financially lucrative path. But I also innately knew that educators have to be smart too. It’s smart teachers who help students of all opportunities and backgrounds find their path to influence and smart educational leaders who take a stand every day for what’s right for students. Steadfast, I insisted that this was the career path I wanted to pursue, and it was the first time that I made the unspoken claim for the professionalization of education.

I vividly remember a conversation I had with my dad one evening at the table. “You’re too smart to be a teacher,” he said. And he was simultaneously both completely correct and absolutely wrong.

I was fortunate in my teacher preparation program to have hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of experience. From tutoring programs to practicum assignments to student teaching across multiple grade levels, I was good and proud to be one of the best future teachers in my cohort. I graduated with Honors and high recognition for my prowess - but I had no teaching contract solidified. I remember putting together packets with my resume and letters of recommendation and hand-delivering them to every principal in every school that was in my community. I applied to large districts across the country and was put on waiting lists with Human Resource departments even though I had a valid teaching certificate and there were significant vacancies in these counties. As a brand new teacher just out of college, I couldn’t get a job, and I waited tables. Eventually, there was an opening in a district just outside of Washington, D.C., for an 8th grade physical science teacher, and I was hired on the spot. The role had been vacant for months, and long-term sub after long-term sub had quit because they couldn’t handle the students. I dove in headfirst to this role, was significantly awful as a teacher, and was loved by my students while I tried to establish myself. I came face to face with the harsh reality that just because I had a teaching certificate, that didn’t mean I was a good teacher.

Over the next decade, I switched schools and grade levels several times because of moves for family, and in various roles were given leadership opportunities where I both thrived and failed. Everything I once learned that made me a good middle school teacher failed me as an elementary school teacher, and everything that had made me a good teacher only scratched at the surface of the skills I needed to be an educational leader. There were multiple times that I felt like I was failing in my job and failing in my personal life, and I considered walking away from this career. Instead, I began saying “yes” to every opportunity that was offered to me and determined to dig in to my own professionalism. In just a few short years, I completed several certifications for STEM education, problem-based learning, effective literacy development, engaging pedagogy for differentiated instruction, and became a certified instructional coach. I completed my Masters in Educational Leadership, was selected by my peers as the Teacher of the Year, and became a Florida finalist for the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching. A door opened for me to join the district team as a K-12 STEM Instructional Specialist, I left a classroom and school community I loved, and I walked through.

As a district administrator, I expanded my skillset, coached educators and educational leaders in STEM practices, collaborated with other curricular teams for interdisciplinary approaches, wrote and rewrote accessible curriculum, fumbled my way through website design, became a Google certified educator, and learned the right and the wrong way to manage grants and certification hours. I completed the grow your own program in my district to become an Assistant Principal, and I was settled. But when a significant personal relationship shifted and was invited to become an Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Congressional Fellow in Washington, D.C. to influence education on a national level, I sold everything I owned, took a leave of absence, and took a leap of faith.

Life in the United States Congress was completely different from anything I had experienced before, and the eleven months I spent in the Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellowship shaped me in ways I didn’t know were possible. I met with constituents, wrote legislation to further efforts for equity in STEM education access, and began to understand the verticality and interrelated nature of the many educational sectors within the system at a deeper level. This experience opened doors for me to become an ASCD Emerging Leader, to partner with a national educational nonprofit as a school administrator and national director, to guide the research ecosystem at a public HBCU, and to be named an ASCD and Worthy Educator Champion in Education. I completed my doctorate in educational leadership and administration, and I started entertaining the idea that my influence could include understanding education from the context of another country.

Today, I am a Peace Corps Response Volunteer in Belize serving as a STEAM Education Specialist where I am partnered with the Ministry of Education, Culture, Science and Technology supporting a five-year strategic plan for expanding and sustaining a STEAM education infrastructure across the country of Belize. While Belize’s educational system is evolving, it is a low-resource environment. Many schools across the country don’t have Wi-Fi access, most don’t have AC, and getting resources into the country is extremely difficult and cost-prohibitive. Yet, I am struck by the intentionality and mindset of educators and educational leaders across the country. It would be easy for educators here to fall into a deficit mindset and lament the things they don’t have. But instead, I have seen teachers, students, and leaders alike focused on the opportunities and the resources they do have. Music is created even when instruments are in need of repair. The youngest children still learn to write their letters even without the “right sized” paper. And the community at large cherishes their rich history and the curation of their treasured heritage. In this culture of gratitude, there is immense joy and a deep sense of community. As a Peace Corps Response Volunteer, I live in Belize among my Belizean friends with an adopted Belizean family. I walk or ride a bike to my office in the seat of government, calculate the timing of bus routes that run on uncertain schedules to visit and support local schools, and play games with the weather to wash and dry my clothes out on the line in the same day. There is no Amazon or Target or Panera, and I am living on a small monthly stipend within the context of my community. But it’s not lost on me that within this context, I regularly have the opportunity to sit down with the CEO of the Ministry of Education for Belize to share my ideas or walk across the plaza to hear the Prime Minister speak.

From that moment in high school when I decided to pursue education, it has been my grandest professional goal to have the largest platform for the greatest possible realm of influence. Knowledge is truly the priceless commodity of innovation, and as you seek to expand knowledge for yourself, your students, and the community you serve, you may just find that your career trajectory shifts in ways that you never expected. I began my career as a promising young teacher - full of drive and ambition and determination to inspire students; and this determination has fueled me along  the way. What I’ve come to realize throughout my career is that true growth, transformation, and change demands certainty amidst uncertain dreams and every advancement of professionalism is a continuation and expansion of prior experiences. I am so fortunate to have a collection of past experiences from years of teaching and leading in schools, understanding how to meet diverse student needs, becoming a leader in problem-based learning and STEM education, and supporting schools on a large national scale. Every past challenge and accomplishment has helped me contribute positively in each role I have held, and as a Peace Corps Response Volunteer*, I am certain that I am learning even more from my counterparts here in Belize than they are learning from me.

Being a Worthy Educator means celebrating the collective and seeking partnership and support from each other. It means confronting the falsehoods that try to cut us down and separate us.

My encouragement to you, regardless of your role, your office, or your current strengths or struggles, is that YOU are a WORTHY EDUCATOR. Being a Worthy Educator means celebrating the collective and seeking partnership and support from each other. It means confronting the falsehoods that try to cut us down and separate us. In the future, I can only imagine where we will all be and what we will all be doing. I’m certain that no matter what our roles are, they will be an expansion of self to support the diverse needs of students and teachers within the community context in which we find ourselves.

*If you are also interested in seeking to understand education from the context of another country, don't be afraid to browse the open Peace Corps Response Volunteer positions! You never know what door may be yours to walk through until you knock and it opens!