SYNTHESIS ESSAY.
This essay reflects and connects. It reflects on my two-year journey pursuing my MAEd from Michigan State University while connecting my learning with my present and future ambitions in education.
"MY TWO-YEAR WALK"
Jake Manning
Spring 2015
Certainly your English professor taught you never to use the word certainly for it assumes agreement between the writer and reader, and is far too absolute; and I bet you were also taught to never address your reader directly as I just did. Rather, you were probably encouraged to use a less personable third person voice with pronouns like one or he or she. See, my English 113 professor at Hope College – where I did my undergrad – taught me many of these same best practices of writing, and these are the sorts of guidelines that float around in my mind as I shape just about every bit of writing I do. I admit I even hear her voice as I construct emails to colleagues at work. I am incredibly grateful for the patience she showed me as she helped chip away at the clunky and middling writing ability I had upon entering college, but above all else, my professor encouraged each of her students to use your voice.
My professor spent at least 99% of each class period, workshop, or lesson with the methodologies of writing well, but without fail she would remind the class to, above all else, use your voice. This essay is not just another piece of technical writing or didactic synthesis of some research articles or course readings. This essay must amply communicate the significance this graduate program has meant to me personally. This essay must also adequately demonstrate the thankfulness in both my mind and heart for the teaching of my instructors, the encouragement and collaboration of my colleagues, and the support of my friends and family as I pursued and completed my Master’s of Arts in Education from Michigan State University. I am eager to share with you the impact these two years of hard work has and will have on me, and therefore, my students, colleagues, and friends and family. I am profoundly grateful for my experience pursuing my MAEd, and I certainly will heed my professor’s advice as I share my two-year tale by using my own voice and inviting you on a walk.
WAKE UP THE ECHOES
Our first stop must surely be Ms. Boltz and Dr. Henriksen’s Psychology of Learning in School and Other Settings, CEP 800. This course stirred up in me something rich and true – and dusty. Spending the entire semester from our present day vantage point, we peered back into the accounts of educational theory and philosophy. Learning from several of the prominent pillars of the field like John Dewey and E.D. Hirsch, it felt as if we were walking on hallowed trails.
I am a Michigan fan, earned a graduate degree from Michigan State, but about to quote the Notre Dame fight song – I am in all sorts of conflict right now. Bear with me.
Cheer, cheer for Old Notre Dame
Wake up the echoes cheering her name,
Send the volley cheer on high,
Shake down the thunder from the sky!
This is one of the most classic and divisive fight songs in the world. People seem to either love it or loathe it, but there is no denying its significance and symbolism in the history of higher education, and these lines seem to only further steep themselves with luster and impact as the years go on. A school formed with such a promising trajectory only deepens this luster and impact on its students and the rest of the world. There is no denying the history of the great institution of the University of Notre Dame.
There is also no denying the history of the great insights of John Dewey and E.D. Hirsch. Over the journey of my MAEd, one invaluable aspect of my education stemmed from this inclusion and willingness to learn from the educational thinkers of the past. Every course, and especially CEP 800, challenged me to consider the great thinking that took place before me, and its implications on current thought or philosophy in education. Below is an excerpt from an essay I constructed in response to these two pillars, Dewey and Hirsch.
“And so they diverge. Dewey and Hirsch, both prominent and highly touted names in educational theory, cannot seem to even agree on the focal point of education. Dewey suggests all teaching should revolve around the student, an Earth-centered universe, if you will. Hirsch, more or less, suggests the curriculum take center-stage. This, then, implies the teacher herself mandate and hold true to critical, timeless rudimentary educational elements such as phonics, arithmetic, even memorization. All of which, and especially the latter, would have seemed like a wet t-shirt to Dewey – too restrictive to be effective.”
Ms. Boltz and Dr. Henriksen, and the rest of the instructors of my MAEd, I am grateful for the aspiration you each passed on to me to practice what we teach by learning from the minds of the past in order to better teach the minds of today. Every day, we as educators cheer the names of the past without consideration or gratitude for their foundational efforts. This course, and many others, encouraged us to look back with appreciation and curiosity to the implications of these names like Dewey and Hirsch, and bid us to wake up the echoes in our own classrooms and lecture halls.
FILTHY BUT FULL OF HOPE
Let’s keep walking, and as we do let’s roll up our sleeves a little bit. We are about get a little messy.
A fellow administrator and someone I hold in high regard both professionally and personally once gave me her rather candid opinion of a long walk in educational leadership. She said, “Jake, if there is one thing that has remained the same over the history of working in leadership it is its insatiable desire for your soul.” Now, there really seem to only be two ways I could have taken that advice – an omen or an invitation. I will explain more in a bit.
Dr. Amey and Dr. Jessup-Anger taught one of the most influential courses in my MAEd, Case Studies in Educational Leadership, EAD 867. This course perhaps had the most intense focus: we were to roll up our sleeves and apply research and readings on the topic of leadership to messy, messy case studies in education. Each study seemed to out-do the preceding study in the way of complication and intrigue, but the entire time they all felt eerily familiar, like they were extracted from a Time magazine article I had read or from a debacle involving a college I had heard about growing up. For as ugly as these issues were to read, they were equally realistic.
That said, this course, much like my friend’s advice, by no means aimed to be an omen, rather, an invitation. We spent much of the semester reading, in my opinion, a selection of writings with the greatest amount of healthy application to an emerging or developing leader in education.
Jon Wergen, writer, professor and educational leader, lends us the advice to “lead in place” no matter what our role or title expects of us. No matter what circumstances or “insatiable desire for [our] soul” working in leadership may wage on our lives, Wergen’s advice to lead in place reaches beyond just job titles and circumstances. Wergen’s advice encourages us to see our career in leadership as my friend does: it is an invitation to joyfully give what is required of us.
STOP, BREATHE, AND GAIN SOME PERSPECTIVE
Well, here we are. We have reached the dwindling days of a two-year trek in pursuit of my MAEd from Michigan State University. We have walked a long ways and covered a lot of ground. I undoubtedly feel I have been afforded no shortage of opportunities to read, listen, and observe ways in which my own career may continue to develop and serve as a catalyst for those in my community. One of the most essential stops along the way led me to form my own definition of leadership. In many of my MAEd courses including Leadership and Organizational Development, EAD 801 with Professor Arnold, we were asked to complete this simple yet dense task at some point throughout the course: define leadership.
The task of defining leadership, to me, is less important than the process Dr. Arnold and many others asked of us. What we were asked to do was to stop, take a deep breath, and gain some perspective in our careers. In many ways, this is precisely what this MAEd program provided my classmates and me. Most of us currently teach, lead, coach or a combination of the three. This MAEd served as a supportive environment of students and faculty who wanted to encourage me in my current positions and push me towards my future endeavors in education. By asking simple yet dense questions of us along the way, we were encouraged to stop, take a deep breath, and gain some perspective.
PRACTICALITY AND COLLEGIALITY
Our final stop on our walk through my MAEd at Michigan State University proves to be the most practical and reflective course of the program. I had heard of this course about midway through my second semester from a classmate and she mentioned its impact, and could best describe the course as a “special time” in her degree. After completing my MAEd, I can honestly agree with my classmate; the Capstone Seminar, ED 870 is a special course.
In researching graduate programs I remember telling my wife, “I just want this experience to be practical and allow me to learn from my classmates.” I am not sure I could better describe how the Capstone Seminar functions. It serves as a platform for not just reflecting on the learning of two years of graduate classes, but encourages me to apply what I have learned to produce a professional portfolio – a resource I will be able to utilize and update for the rest of my career!
Secondly, I have been pleasantly surprised by how much I have appreciated the encouragement and critiquing of my classmates in all of my courses but specifically the Capstone Seminar. I not only have found the mutual support to be refreshing but incredibly helpful. It is reassuring to know my portfolio and essays have passed over the desk of dozens of my classmates and instructors along the way. This tremendous example of collegiality only grows my confidence in my portfolio and my entire graduate experience as I move forward.
GRATITUDE YIELDS ACTION
We have arrived. Weeks away from graduation and a diploma hitting the presses soon, these two years have flown by but not without long hours of reading and writing. After a walk with the length and significance such as this one, there surely develop people you need to thank. I wrote in my “Future As A Learner Essay” in my Capstone Seminar of the significant role my teachers, coaches, and educators served in my life; how these people inspired me to want to be the same for others.
“My ultimate goal is to serve a community faithfully, to teach, to coach, and to mentor young people for the amazing compounding effect a life spent on these pursuits can have on both the local and greater community. I will attest to it. And I must thank a few honorable, selfless, and zealous people who first served me in this way – who first served us in this way.”
Reflecting on this great impact my former teachers and coaches had on my life has made me both grateful and aware of the impact of many of my MAEd professors. So, to conclude this essay I want to give thanks to a few people along the way.
Thank you, Dr. Khalifa for choosing to engage in uncomfortable but necessary conversation. Your course still challenges my daily outlook on education, my social role, and even what grocery store I choose to shop. Thank you.
Thank you, to the entire crew of teaching assistants in EAD 867 for putting together what I felt was the most sincere channel for honest dialogue around introspection, leadership, and the attitude of working in education. You all went above and beyond the call. Thank you.
Thank you, Dr. Riewald for giving me equal parts patience and challenge as you spent your summer working with me through my development of highly technical yet practical in-season and out-of-season training and nutritional programs for college football players. Thank you.
Thank you, Bry, Ted, John, Rob, Kathryn, Brett, and Bryan for bridging the gap of online education to remind me of how these hours spent in conversation, discussion, and researching all have implications far beyond the grades I earned, papers I wrote, or knowledge I gained. You all reminded me of these certainties and helped me connect the dots. Thank you.
I am a grateful person for experiencing my two years in the MAEd program at Michigan State University. The program helped shape my ever-developing philosophy and ideals of life spent in educational leadership. It equipped me with the research and writing of some of the oldest and boldest, as well as some of the newest and brightest educational minds. It pushed me to engage with technology and to think imaginatively. I am a different person on this side of my degree, and I am forever grateful.
I am forever grateful and, thus, forever challenged to bring into action the superior education I was provided upon completing my Master’s of Arts in Education from Michigan State University.
Now, let’s get back to our walk…