What teachers really want for Teacher Appreciation Week.
Teacher Appreciation Week 2024 has come and gone. As we begin to feel the warm shadow of summer, high school seniors in Laura Jeanne Penrod’s classroom are doing a gallery walk of their final English projects at Southwest Career and Technical Academy (SWCTA). Penrod is an educator who needs no introduction. As the 2024 Nevada Teacher of the Year, she just returned from Washington D.C. where she spent a week attending a series of White House events, meeting with legislators, and advocating for change to keep teachers in the classroom.
Penrod is one of 160+ educators actively working with the Portrait of a Nevada Learner, a collaborative and community-based project powered by the Nevada Department of Education’s Future of Learning Network. We talked with Penrod about how the Portrait of Nevada Learner is making learning more exciting and relevant for both students and teachers.
Do We Have a Teacher Shortage?
Penrod reflected on the trend of licensed educators opting for alternative career paths, emphasizing the importance of trusting teachers as professionals in their classrooms, as they know their students best.
Clear expectations, ongoing support, and professional development are essential for ensuring educators feel equipped to navigate their work. With a clear understanding of desired student outcomes, teachers can leverage autonomy to choose teaching methods and approaches that best suit their students’ needs and learning styles.
“There are a lot of teachers out there who are licensed, who are choosing to do a different job. The biggest concern we have in education right now is that teachers are not trusted as professionals in their classrooms and we absolutely have to trust that they know what’s best for their students.”
It comes as no surprise that interest in pursuing a career in teaching among high school seniors and college freshmen has fallen 50% since the 1990s and 38% since 2010.
“Canned curriculum has never created a better system, a teacher has always created a better system,” says Penrod. “There is no way that a curriculum can embed hope, desire, all of these inspirational things that teachers do to provide a light for their students.”
What Her Students Say.
Walking into Penrod’s classroom is walking into a room filled with music, conversation, laughter - a vibrant space she has worked hard to create at SWCTA. We ask one of her students how this class is different from any others she has taken.
“She is drastically different and honestly I feel more engaged,” says Gia. “Most classes can be very ‘by the book’. She builds her own lessons and implements her own flare in her learning style. It’s better to be spoken to like a person, than be talked at like a student.”
Many of the things you see around Penrod’s classroom are personal artifacts - a Philadelphia Eagles Football Flag, inspirational sports photography, a Coldplay poster, empowerment quotes, and a lot of color. According to Penrod, embedding social emotional work into her classroom helps students learn who they are and how do they become comfortable, in the uncomfortable, encouraging young students to grow along their journey into life after high school.
“In the real world you’re not always going to have a set of directions to follow. Doing social emotional work in the classroom gives us the freedom to connect with ourselves and others,” adds Gia. “It helps us find ways to navigate life without being told how to do so.”
The Portrait in Action
Through the Portrait of a Nevada Learner, Penrod has been able to have a greater level of flexibility and autonomy in her classroom. It’s something she finds beneficial for both teachers and students.
“The portrait is focusing on the soft skills with content,” says Penrod. “How do we embed English with empathy skills and civic engagement? Kids want to come to school and make an impact, they no longer want to come to school to do a worksheet; and we either are going to meet them in the class or they’re going to leave us.”
The Portrait has gained national exposure and recognition, especially due to its inquiry-based approach to learning. Penrod herself has done extensive research in other states including Arizona, Illinois, and New York to further show this is a generational project. She recognizes our education system has been set up this way for generations and it will take time to fully embrace a mindset shift.
“We need to continue on this route, piloting portrait work in smaller districts, learning what's good, learning what needs to change, and then continuing from there to slowly roll it out in every district. But it can't be a one size fits all approach,” adds Penrod. “It has to be something that is moldable to each school, to each region. And unfortunately in our district in particular, change has been a blanket mandate most of the time. And we've got to move away from that.”
Penrod stresses the Portrait has been built with the community in mind and by the community, with educators and with everyone who believes that this can be the best work. Aligning passion with patience will keep this work moving forward. Next year she will be training a new cohort of teachers and sharing her learnings from the Portrait, to continue making small but significant strides for educators and students alike.
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