From a young age, I loved to read. My mom could be standing right in front of me calling my name and I literally would not hear her because I would be so engrossed in whatever I was reading.
I read anything I could get my hands on. My grandma used to take us to the library a lot, especially over the summer. I always liked English classes, especially in high school when they became more focused on close reading; I liked unpacking symbolism, authors’ word choices, and things like that.
When I got to college, I started out as a marketing major. At the end of my freshman year, I realized I hated going to my marketing classes, so I would probably hate going to work every day. I reflected on what I genuinely found enjoyment in, and I realized it was always my English classes. I love unpacking a piece of literature, but I also love the community that comes with it. I feel like it’s so much more fun to read the same book with other people and have discussions about it. So I changed my major to English literature.
Once I made the switch, everyone said, ‘Oh, you’re an English major. So you’re going to teach.’ I didn’t pursue it right away out of pure spite. But eventually teaching caught up to me. I was at a crossroads, unhappy at an insurance job, and City Teaching Alliance messaged me on one of those recruitment apps. I looked into the program and realized that their mission aligned with my beliefs. It seemed like a great way for someone who didn’t have prior teaching experience to get a foot in the door. I applied, and here I am.
I’m a pretty active person, and I hated being stuck behind a desk. I love that this job allows me to walk and move around and be fidgety and animated and kind of goofy sometimes.
Teaching fulfills me. It’s amazing to see the little spark in my students’ eyes when they get something right. Even though it’s challenging, it’s a profession where I learn something new every single day.
I learn different techniques, but I also learn so much from my students. I’ve always liked seeking out knowledge and connection. That’s all we want, right? A genuine human connection. I love that I get to come into work every day and have that.
I’m originally from California, and I grew up in the Bay Area. I moved to Boston for undergrad and went to Suffolk University. It was great — I love the East Coast. I stayed in Boston until I started this program in 2022. I got placed in Philadelphia and ended up moving here, which is funny because my mom’s side of the family is actually from Philadelphia. I’m kind of reconnecting with my roots in a way.
Growing up, I really wanted to get out of California. I had a bit of a chaotic upbringing. I thought, ‘Where is the furthest possible place I can go?’ Boston seemed cool. It’s a small city. It didn’t feel as overwhelming as moving to New York by myself at 18.
I knew personally that college was going to be my ticket out of California, so I worked really, really hard. All through high school, I did a ton of extracurriculars. I was taking a ton of honors and AP classes. I applied to Boston University and got a roommate assigned. But I was overambitious my senior year. After our first quarter, my guidance counselor was like, ‘Ashleen, you should really drop AP Physics.’ I wasn’t doing well in it. But at the time, I had too much pride, and I thought, ‘Ashleen Calhan is not a quitter.’ I ended up failing AP Physics during the very last semester. Even though I would have graduated with above a 4.0, I also technically didn’t graduate high school on time, so I couldn’t go to BU anymore.
I contemplated taking a gap year and staying home. But it was already the summer, and I had hyped myself up to move to Boston. Thankfully, Suffolk had accepted me and still had space for me that fall. That’s how I ended up there. It was less expensive, I got a bigger scholarship, and it ended up working out for the best for me, because I would not be where I am today otherwise. I learned that the best things can come from failing.
My guidance counselor ended up being right when he told me, ‘No, you can’t do it.’ However, because he didn’t really support me with solutions or help me work through the issue, I ended up spending the year trying to prove him wrong without any additional support.
I try to push my students to be the best that they can be, and I tell them, ‘I am here to support and walk you through it,’ because I want all of them to succeed. I never want to be the teacher who tells my students they can’t do something. Words are impactful, and I got into teaching to uplift. I don’t want to be the person who shatters one of my students’ dreams or breaks their confidence because I wasn’t careful with my words.
I’ll be teaching a lesson and college will come up. The students will ask me where I went to school, and they have genuine questions about my life path and how I got places. They ask, ‘What do I have to do if I want to do this?’ I always tell them, ‘It’s really early for you to be thinking about it, but come in during lunch and I’ll talk to you about it.’ I answer any questions they have because I want to make sure that they know that there are multiple options for them, and they don’t necessarily need to take the college route either.
Some of the teachers I had really inspired me and continue to inspire me. They were very real and authentic.
When you’re a teenager, you’re craving people to notice you as an adult. Around that age, I really wanted people to see me. I wanted those moments of authenticity where I really felt like someone knew me.
My teachers were so passionate about the subjects that they taught. Specifically, my AP Language and AP Literature teacher… I was lucky enough to have her for multiple semesters.
She made some of the old classics really, really exciting. To start us off reading ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ she printed out a list of Shakespearean insults and broke the class in half, with one half being the Capulets and the other the Montagues. She took us outside and let us yell Shakespearean insults at each other. It was such a cool way to get us excited about the book and get us really invested in the conflict between the two families. I think about that often.
A thought that inspires me a lot is, ‘How can I get students to connect to and relate to the books that we’re reading?’ The school district has a diverse range of books, which I appreciate. I feel like it’s pretty easy for students to connect, but a lot of kids, especially in middle school, don’t think reading is very fun. How do I make it exciting for them?
A big thing for me has just been trying to show up authentically. Kids can smell if you’re being a phony, and I’ve taken the time to work with them and get to know them. That’s always been my thing, creating an environment within my classroom where students feel safe enough to make mistakes. I think you need mistakes to learn.
I have one student in particular who was a challenge for me, especially last year and at the beginning of this year. He’s very chatty, which made it difficult for me to manage the classroom’s behavior. He’s so bright — a very intelligent young man and very charismatic.
I had so many days where I felt like this one student totally derailed my entire class and I had no idea what to do. I knew other teachers had given him detention, and he’s kind of known as being a troublemaker. We just didn’t click, so I felt like I couldn’t get through to him; whereas with some of my other students who maybe have more challenging behaviors, I formed a pretty solid relationship with them where I’ve been able to talk to them and manage it. This one student in particular took a lot of work from me.
I worked on small things like, ‘Okay, you know this student plays baseball.’ I made a point to go out of my way to really get to know him, say hi in the hallways, and ask how his weekend was. I started using positive reinforcement with this student because I noticed he loved for someone to pay attention to him. I ended up forming a really great relationship with him. I know he’s still kind of a troublemaker in other classes, but for the most part he’s amazing.
I know a lot of my students’ parents work multiple jobs to try to make ends meet. They’re still super involved, but maybe they don’t have the luxury of being at home as much. A lot of the time, we as teachers are the only consistent adults in students’ lives. It’s definitely not not an easy career. It takes a lot of resolve and compassion.
During my year of student teaching, I had quite a few reality checks in terms of the reality of being a teacher. It’s not just fun and easy. I think it was good for me to experience those challenges, because it reinforced for me that this is something worth putting work into.
You need to do it for the children. The system has a lot of issues wrong with it, but you just have to do the best that you can with the tools you have in place. I keep reminding myself of that.
The education system that we currently have in place in the United States is failing our children. I think we’re stressing things like testing instead of focusing on foundational skills. I see it in my own classroom, where students have been passed along and now they’re in seventh grade and they lack the foundational skills that they should have learned in second.
A lot of things like phonics and word recognition, those small skills that you don’t really think about, even reading fluency… these aren’t stressed enough in the younger years or are overlooked.
You don’t want to have a deficit mindset in terms of what your students can achieve, and you want to make sure that you’re pushing them. That being said, it’s hard to expect them to cite several pieces of textual evidence (which is the standard we’re supposed to be teaching) when some of them can’t even write a full paragraph.
There’s a lot that can’t be easily changed in terms of the way the education system operates. There’s a lack of funding and energy we put into the education system as a whole. But on a smaller level, more support from administration is definitely helpful.
Especially as a new teacher, support from your fellow teachers is vital as well. I feel like a lot of people don’t really understand the ins and outs of what teachers experience in a day, unless you’re also a teacher. So that sense of community is important in order for us to succeed.
The pandemic didn’t help. Students not only missed out on two years of academics but they also missed out on two years of vital social and emotional development. My students are in seventh grade, but they’re handling conflict with their peers as though they’re ten or nine years old. We’re not always taking that into consideration, and the behavioral issues impact my classroom’s ability to learn.
One of the positives is that teachers are really encouraged at this school to incorporate social-emotional learning throughout our lessons, but then also to have extended homeroom on Mondays, where we have 30 minutes specifically dedicated to social-emotional learning loss. If I’m noticing a lot of snickering in my classes, or if students are bullying each other, I might use that time to do an SEL lesson.
The school district has a community meeting template filled with different activities that we can pick and choose from, which is really awesome. The district curriculum incorporates SEL within the actual content as well. Our opening activity for a recent book was, ‘What would you ask Ned?’ and that helped the students to empathize with his experiences. Another activity speaks to the hardships the characters are going through and connects them to a hard time in the students’ own lives.
Every month, we do a town hall meeting where students can fill out a survey and voice their concerns. Then our administration uses it as a grade-wide opportunity to do an SEL lesson. Last month, they did one on accountability and students taking accountability for their actions. I think that’s promising.
We’re on the precipice of change in terms of the education system and the way that things are done. It’ll be interesting to see how things shift in the next five to 10 years. The way things are now, a lot of people, especially new teachers, are disheartened and are leaving. It’s drawing attention to some of the deficits in how we’re doing things, which I think will spark that change.
I have bad days, but I try not to let them drag me down. At the end of each school day, I try to think of at least one moment that made the rest of it worth it. For example, if a student who never shares out volunteers to read out loud, that shows that they’re comfortable enough in my class to do that.
I guess I think it’s really easy to spiral and say, ‘These kids are so bad,’ and that does not help them. It doesn’t help you either. I try to focus on the positive and the small little glimmers of hope throughout the day.
At the end of last year, my classroom management was absolutely awful. I felt like I was not being my authentic self. My classroom management strategy at that time was to just get loud and match their level. I’m definitely a more quiet-spoken person, but I was this new teacher, and I had no idea what I was doing. I felt like I didn’t have enough support.
I talked to my City Teaching Alliance coach about it, and she was like, ‘It’s okay.’ She came in and gave me positive reinforcement. I told her my classroom management was rough and that I didn’t know why I was doing this. I didn’t even know if I was doing a good job.
All she said was, ‘You’re doing a great job. You’re really just a phenomenal teacher.’ I almost started crying. I realized that was all I needed to hear: some validation.
–Ashleen Calhan
Teacher in The School District of Philadelphia
City Teaching Alliance Fellow, Cohort 2022
