Pushing boundaries

Erin Anderson stands like a teacher, speaks like a teacher, and has the classroom countenance of—you guessed it—a teacher.

She’s had a lot of practice.

“I actually started in high school. It was the pipeline program that got me to where I am today. For me, it did exactly what it was supposed to do,” smiles Anderson, who graduated summa cum laude from Rowan University on Wednesday, May 9, with degrees in secondary education and history and an endorsement in teaching students with disabilities.

The summer before her senior year at Cherokee High School in Evesham Township, Anderson entered the Rowan Urban Teacher Academy, a pipeline program developed by Rowan’s College of Education that gives high school students an introduction to the teaching profession. The program also exposes students to the possibilities of teaching in urban districts or in high-needs subject areas, such as math, science, special education or bilingual education.

For two weeks, Anderson was one of 26 teens who worked with children from the City of Camden enrolled in the Cooper Learning Center Summer Reading Program. The high schoolers developed their own lesson plans, incorporating activities that addressed core curriculum content standards such as mathematics, science, language arts literacy, visual arts, social studies and physical education.

Anderson completed the program confident teaching was her calling. She quickly realized that teachers were vital advocates for their students. But RUTA also showed her just as quickly that elementary education wasn’t for her.

‘Teachers are on the front lines of defense for students’

“I love working with little kids, but I could never repeat myself 15 times all day. That takes a different type of patience level. RUTA gave me that insight,” she says. “I also realized through RUTA that teachers are on the front lines of defense for students.”

As she moves into a career in the classroom—with an intention to eventually work in educational leadership—the advocacy component of teaching is close to Anderson’s heart. That’s why pursuing a certification in teaching students with disabilities—and creating an inclusive classroom learning community—is so important to her.

“I didn’t come to Rowan thinking about special education,” says Anderson, who chose Rowan partly because she was already familiar with many College of Education faculty through her RUTA involvement. Emeritus Health & Exercise Science Professor Theresa Cone, who specialized in adapted physical education and dance and taught in RUTA, was an early influence.

“Dr. Cone’s focus was finding ways to include everyone,” recalls Anderson who, because of Cone’s influence, joined Rowan’s Student Council for Exceptional Children. She eventually became the club’s president, overseeing activities such as the Buds Dance for young people with special needs and co-sponsorships of walks and dances to support autism awareness.

Her junior year, Anderson began taking courses for the disability teaching endorsement. Last semester, a course in differentiated instruction in inclusive classrooms, taught by Brent Elder, assistant professor of interdisciplinary and inclusive education, impacted her view of education and her place in it, she says.

Believing in kids with disabilities

“His class focused on working toward including everyone, using everyone’s strengths to teach and support each other,” says Anderson, who completed her student teaching at Delsea Regional Middle School, where she taught four sections of history to students at varying educational levels.

Her clinical experiences included work at Bridgeton and Buena high schools as well as Archbishop Damiano School (ADS), which serves students with moderate to severe disabilities.

“At ADS, there were six kids in the class and only one was verbal. I had never really encountered students with those types of disabilities. It made me realize that supports for students with disabilities like at ADS can work in a regular classroom as well…things like verbal and non-verbal cues. That experience made me stronger in differentiation.

“As a teacher, you need to believe students with disabilities can achieve something everyone else can,” adds Anderson, recipient of the College of Education’s Cecil F. Miller Special Education Medallion. “You need to appropriately push them.”

Elder’s class and others at Rowan have Anderson thinking more about her future in education.

“I’m thinking a lot about pushing the boundaries of education,” says Anderson. “Now I’m much more passionate about the rights of individuals with disabilities. I can see myself working in educational policy in the future. I know I want to be a principal or a superintendent. I think there are changes that need to be made and I want to be the one to make them.”

Anderson is well on her way, says Elder, whose research focuses on international disability rights and disability rights policy.

“Erin is super cool and very mature,” says Elder. “In our class, we talked a lot about the structures in education that oppress students rather than serve them. We have a lot of crucial discussion questioning the educational structures that perpetuate exclusion of students with disabilities. Erin really picked up on that. I gave the undergraduate class doctoral level readings and you could tell that Erin was chewing on it a lot longer than other students.

“For her to find a deep interest in such complex educational issues demonstrated to me that she will embed that into her philosophy of teaching,” continues Elder, who notes that Anderson is passionate about education and gifted in engaging others professionally and respectfully. “She will think deeply about how she navigates and how she pushes back on those structures.”

Intellectual and interpersonal growth

Anderson is quick to say that her history studies—and her campus involvement as an Admissions Ambassador—helped her grow intellectually and interpersonally. She learned a lot about teaching, classroom management and engaging students from her history professors, she says.

“The history department taught me the skills and content that I applied to my education classes,” Anderson says, noting that one professor had the class sit in a giant circle to discuss world history. “It was a student-led discussion. It was so much more inviting and welcoming to sit that way.”

An Admissions Ambassador for three years, Anderson embraced the opportunity to showcase the Rowan experience to prospective students and their families. Her six years of involvement with Rowan—beginning as a high school student-- give her a unique perspective, she says.

“I tell high school students about RUTA all the time on my tours,” says Anderson, who has given three or more admissions tours weekly and is a huge fan of open houses and receptions for accepted students.

“I realize how important the job is. Even if you just make one connection with one family, it makes a difference. Ambassadors are a great group of people. Everyone is outgoing and involved in so many ways. It’s a diverse group of students.

“Being an ambassador made me more proud to be a Rowan student,” she adds. “I came out of my shell by being an ambassador. It was a good way to kind of help me become a teacher.”

Anderson anticipates a future teaching middle school, where, she says, it’s gratifying to teach students how to analyze, argue a position, justify themselves, and be creative.

“The way you support students helps bring things out in them. That’s what my teachers did for me,” Anderson says. “Middle school is a great challenge. That’s the kind of population I want to work with. I can’t see myself doing anything else but education.”