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Grow-Your-Own Educator Internship Takes Flight

Tuesday, January 25, 2022

"Representation Matters" is a phrase seen frequently in the arts and entertainment industry, and it applies to education, too. "Students who have teachers who look like them are much more successful,*" says Alexander DeBaker, Executive Director of Academies and Transformation for Racine Academies. Now, Racine is making a bid to capitalize on this by initiating a Grow-Your-Own Educator Internship for its students in the education pathway.

Education pathway students already have access to an Educators Rising chapter at Carthage College and dual enrollment courses through three area colleges.

The internship program, which started this year with nine students, is tied to the state-certified employability skills certificate and the state-certified leadership skills certificate. It’s a paid internship. Students get credit for their work, and interns receive a letter of intent from Racine’s human resources department that promises a job upon successful completion of a bachelor’s degree program in education.

Milena Gutierrez, senior
Milena Gutierrez

“The pay attracted me at first,” says Milena Gutierrez, a senior in the education pathway, who dropped one of her two jobs to take the internship.

“Then my teachers started telling me, ‘You can go far with this. They’ll hold a place for you.’” That’s when her passion kicked in. Milena has two sisters with special needs. They can’t walk or talk, and they communicate with noise. “If ever I was a teacher, it would be in special needs because of them,” she says. “That’s why I wanted to continue in this pathway.”

Milena is interning in a middle school special education class. “I feel like it’s important to be part of someone’s day, being someone to talk to.”

Intern with student
Milton Lewis working with a student

Relationship-building is also top-of-mind for senior Milton Lewis who has already learned, “there are so many things going through their little heads, you really have to get to know them before you know what’s going on with them.”

“I’ve been placed in a resource room so I get to work with kids who have a variety of disabilities,” he says. “I get to see how teachers are planning.”

His advice to fellow students? “If anyone is on the verge of wanting to do an internship, just do it!”

Milena agrees: “There are so many job opportunities throughout the grades: cooking, nursing, and other subjects.”

“We know in urban education, we need a diverse workforce,” says DeBaker, “If we look out 4, 5, 6 years, [our internship program] should start to make a change.”

*Resources:

Gershenson, Seth; Hanson, Michael; and Lindsey, Constance A. 2021. Teacher Diversity and Student Success: Why Racial Representation Matters in the Classroom. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.

  1. Institution, Videotaped April 2021. “Teacher Diversity and Student Success: Why Racial Representation Matters in the Classroom.” Accessed January 12, 2022.