Empowering Educators Through Community Partnerships

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Community-minded teaching, diversity equity inclusion, teacher preparation, mentorship program, urban education, Breakthrough Urban Ministries, community feedback, cultural consciousness, teacher retention, student teaching, community resources, nonprofit partnerships, teacher support, educational initiatives, community engagement.

SPEAKERS

Gynger Garcia, Amy Vujaklija, Joi Patterson

Gynger Garcia: 00:03

It definitely allows us to highlight just being community minded as a teacher. And you know, what does that mean? What does that look like?

Amy Vujaklija: 00:13

This episode was originally released under the podcast titled teaching and learning theory versus practice. This rebooted episode has been migrated to teaching and leading with Dr Amy and Dr Joi I am Dr Amy Vujaklija, Director of educator preparation,

Joi Patterson: 00:33

and I am Dr Joi Patterson, Chief Diversity Officer. Our podcast addresses issues through the lens of diversity, equity and inclusion, along with solutions for us to grow as educators.

Amy Vujaklija: 00:48

So join us on our journey to become better teachers and leaders. So let's get into it.

Amy Vujaklija: 00:56

Well, hello. Dr, Joi, good morning.

Joi Patterson: 00:59

Dr, Amy, how are you

Amy Vujaklija: 01:01

well? I'm doing really well, and I want to introduce someone that I had the privilege of hearing at one of our workshops for the Student Education Association. Ginger Garcia was one of our guest speakers, and I knew that we need to have her on our show too,

Joi Patterson: 01:24

and before we introduce her, just kind of setting the tone. You and I both, we value partnerships, especially with K 12 schools right which we build such viable benefits for both institutions. Most importantly, the students are the beneficiaries of everything that we do. We write grants together, we implement wonderful initiatives, and in some cases, we conduct research. Most recently, we started this consortium with about 25 local school districts, which is amazing, to build this pipeline to teaching. I mean, the benefits of this, it's endless, but seldom Amy, do you and I talk about, what are the benefits of partnering with the community organization? So today, as you said, we're going to talk about some of the attributes of breakthrough, which is a nonprofit community organization, breakthrough, they partner with those affected by poverty to build connections, develop skills and open doors of opportunity. We're going to talk to the breakthrough community liaison today, right?

Amy Vujaklija: 02:37

Exactly, and she works specifically with the education outreach component of breakthrough, and like you said, it offers a lot of community resources, but this particular part we're going to talk about is with teacher education. So ginger Garcia works as the community education liaison, as you said, and as part of the volunteer engagement team at Breakthrough Urban Ministries on the west side of Chicago. Born and raised in Chicago with parents of South American descent, she is a former Chicago Public School student and elementary teacher and now a CPS parent. She loves and is excited about urban education in every way. Her job now allows her to take part in this necessary work in unique ways. Being community minded and a good neighbor are desires of ginger. Living and working on the west side allows her to do that regularly. It's important to her, as a mother raising two Latina daughters, to not only emphasize the value of family and community, but to be an example of that as well. So welcome to our show.

Gynger Garcia: 03:59

Hi. Good afternoon. It's such a pleasure to join you today.

Joi Patterson: 04:03

Good afternoon, ginger. How are you? You're good.

Gynger Garcia: 04:07

I am well. Thank you. How are all of you

Joi Patterson: 04:10

outstanding? West Side. I'm not from the west side. I'm from the I grew up on the south side of Chicago, South Chicago, South Side.

Gynger Garcia: 04:20

You know what they say about the west side? It's

Joi Patterson: 04:22

the best side, right? We used to say, growing up in the hood, right? So, ginger, you started your career as a classroom teacher, right? I did, and I started as a classroom teacher and CPS when I went into education, but you left that classroom, much like Amy and I, we both left the classroom. We were both middle school teachers, and we left the classroom to go into higher education. What are some of the factors for you of why you change? From a classroom educator to a not for profit organization educator, because you're still an educator. Yes,

Gynger Garcia: 05:06

I have been for as long as I can remember, and that's always been a lot of who I am is in education and working with young people and within community. Over the years, I've learned the value of community and teaching together, and so for me, I think one of the major factors of switching the environment of a classroom to a non for profit was just sort of the timing of where my life was. Personally, we had just joined a church, a local church in the city, and I met the executive director of the non for profit that I'm at now at my church. She was doing a couple of morning series on race and reconciliation, and she talked a lot about breakthrough. And so her and I met that way, and then she introduced me to a couple other folks. And as time went on, there was just some openings and needs that they had, and they reached out and kind of asked what I thought. And at the school that I was teaching at, the school year was coming to an end, there was some uncertainty with the following year in terms of what my placement would look like, and I wasn't sure what that was all going to look like. And so the transition made sense. I was ready for something different and something new within education. And up until then, I had worked with a mostly Latino population, so I was really excited to transition that and to work with a different demographic.

Amy Vujaklija: 06:28

That is really an interesting pathway, because we all have been introduced to something that is really fascinating, really exciting to us, but sometimes it's hard to turn away from something that we're familiar with or that we are already passionate about. So I'm wondering, were there some pieces about classroom teaching that maybe pushed you to look in different directions? Maybe have a little conversation about that before we move into some more information about breakthrough.

Gynger Garcia: 07:04

Okay, yeah, definitely, I think that throughout my years in the classroom, I have definitely, like I definitely struggled, and I had mentors within the school I was teaching in that really just saved me, for lack of a better word, they were just amazing veteran educators in that building. And must have seen it on my face several times where, you know, I just felt very lost on like what my next move should be. I was a first year second year teacher, still learning every day, and my principal at the time was amazing, but she was just very busy and hardly in the building. And so anytime I had doubts or questions or things of that nature, I didn't really have someone to talk to about it. And so these awesome co teachers of mine were really my my lifeline during those first few years, and I learned so much from them. So I definitely felt my struggle, and as much as I loved being in education, I quickly started to feel that maybe being in a different environment would be better for me. And so fast forward all these years later, now I'm part of a teacher preparation program, and it was very it's very evident to me now that my teacher preparation program back then was definitely basic and left out a lot of things that I learned the hard way and along the way, and didn't really set me up for a camaraderie between educator mentors and things that I know are part of teacher prep programs now that I feel like make a Huge difference. So yeah, definitely that was part of it, like just feeling my struggle and wanting to see if I can expand it and grow in a different setting.

Amy Vujaklija: 08:48

Tell us a little about the missing pieces from your own teacher education program that you're seeing evident now in these teacher education programs today. Yeah.

Gynger Garcia: 09:01

So it lots of different things, I guess, but one of the things that I appreciate about the teacher prep program that I work with now is that we engage pre service teachers very early on, so as as early as a freshman in college or a sophomore in college, if you're if you're thinking about teaching as a potential future career, you know, we get you involved now. And so that means a lot of different things. And so I just think that that's a lot of opportunity to get in the classroom early on, start having these conversations, start meeting folks where, when I look back at my teacher prep program many years ago, I didn't get into the classroom until my senior year of college, when I was doing observation hours and I got in with my student teacher, my student teaching experience, and linked up with a pretty great cooperating teacher, but I do recall that during my student teaching semester, we would still meet up with. Cohort of students at my university and discuss how things were going once a week, and there was lots of other students in my cohort that weren't even really getting that student teaching experience that I was fortunate enough to get. So my cooperating teacher was really great and gracious of just letting me practice and teach and make mistakes, and she would encourage me and all these things. And there was other kids, or other students in my cohort that were not lesson planning, not practicing a teaching session. They were grading papers and rearranging tables and desks. And so if this is supposed to be the moment where you're getting the most practice. It wasn't always happening. And so I felt like it was a very small window, too. My student teaching semester was just a couple of months. And so I felt that by the end of it, when I was really, really getting the most comfortable. I knew everyone. I was meeting parents, I was grooving with the lessons and feeling really good it was over, and it was, you know, time for me to get a job somewhere else. And so I just feel like that wasn't enough time for me to really kind of experience some struggles and how to work through that. It was actually really great student teaching experience. But then when I got into another school building, and it was in a Latino community, so I felt like that that was going to be great for me. I still struggled a lot. I felt like I hadn't really been through the barriers and didn't really know how to work through that, and who to who to reach out to, and who to lean on, and who to ask questions. How do I locate same minded individuals in the building as me? And let's, let's talk about this together. And so these are some of the conversations we have now in our pre service cohort with Illinois State, just very intentional getting all of these things off the ground early on, and I think that that really helps you prepare better, and helps you become more equipped and just have a good idea. So what you're walking into, it's one of the things that I like to say to students that I meet early on is that, you know, this is definitely hard work, and it's not for everyone, and so this is something to begin to reflect and analyze and see if this is something you see yourself doing long term, because this isn't a job to take on for a year or two and leave. Ideally, we want teachers in the building to, you know, to go for the long run,

Joi Patterson: 12:21

right, right? You talked about mentoring earlier, and we know how important that mentoring is. I know from my experience. I started my first teaching experience with 40 non English speaking students, and I was thrown in a class. Here's a book, there you go. And I was so overwhelmed in the beginning, I don't know if I even wanted a mentor. I didn't want anybody to know what I didn't know. I had to quickly pull things together, and luckily for the students, things turned out really well, but I had to really teach myself and build myself up. So we know how important it is not just that the classroom, but early on in the preparation program, as you were saying, to really get students in the classroom as early as possible. Governor state, we try to get our candidates in the classroom with their very first course. They take field experience, they move into their clinical experience, all of that, they have over 100 hours in the classroom before student teaching. So I think that's extremely important, and that they weren't in a variety have as much diversity experience as possible, so that they know what they they're getting into. Because, as you said, teaching is tough. This is a hard job. There's no point enough sugar coating it. In fact, according to research, the teaching profession has the highest burnout rate than any other profession. It is increasingly common in education for new teachers to last no more than four years. So more than 44% of teachers last less than five years. So the simple reason, as you said, teaching is hard work, so our candidates really need to know what they're getting themselves into right before they get into the classroom. And just keeping things real, teaching is especially hard for those who work in urban schools, and I know that's kind of where you fit in. And so I'm looking forward to you telling us more about breakthrough, because breakthrough, I believe, originated like 30 years ago, starting with like a soup kitchen or a coffee or something like that. And now tell us more about breakthrough. And more importantly, tell us about your role, and how does breakthrough help prepare teacher candidates to work in urban schools? Yes,

Gynger Garcia: 14:51

I could not agree with you more. I am not surprised by the stats that you shared. It's still pretty. Sad when I think about it, but a good reminder as to you know, these types of intentional, purposeful pipeline of support for pre service teachers is more important and necessary than ever before. And so yes, with a nonprofit like breakthrough, we have been around for 30 years, like you said, originally beginning on the north side, but relocating to East Garfield Park shortly after, and really the bread and butter of our organization began through homeless intervention, and it's still very much a huge part of our work. We've got case managers that work alongside of them to really support them where they are and help them go from crisis to stability. One of the things I love so much about breakthrough is that a lot of what we have in place now is out of community feedback. We do all major decisions with community feedback in mind. So asking parents, asking residents, asking business owners, like, what do you love about your neighborhood? What do you wish was different? What do you wish was here? And so about 2025, years ago, a small after school program was born, because back then, so many after school program options weren't really happening in school buildings like they are happening now. A lot of parents were saying there really isn't much going on for kids after school, and so a really small, just Homework Help type after school program started, and it's really grown super fruitful into a network that we call now. We call it the breakthrough Youth Network, which is for K to eighth grade students. They come in after school, get the homework help, get some lunch, have some recreational play time, and then they choose elective classes that they can sign up for every couple of months and do that as well. And so they are loved on and supported with staff as well as volunteers that come in in early childhood preschool program for two to five year old local children, whatever you can pretty much think of. I think we've definitely tried it at one point. So yeah, it's really this, just this awesome sense for kids in the neighborhood to feel like they don't have to travel out to the suburbs to access all these fun classes and all these opportunities. It's actually right here. We also have a community Fresh Market, which is like our food pantry program. One of the biggest differences, I think, of our fresh market is that it's not really set up like some city pantries, where you kind of just wait in a line, come in, receive a box, a pre packed box of canned goods, and you're kind of sent on your way. Our fresh market really holds truth the value of each person's dignity. And so our base is set up like a grocery store, so families can come in and grab their cart and do their shopping, and we recently opened up a violence prevention program. It's like true, skilled heroes in the community. So like I said, one of the things I love the most is that all of these really came out of just community feedback, that

Amy Vujaklija: 18:03

community feedback is so valuable, and you've really built quite a number of systems and activities based on what the community wants and needs. Tell us a little bit about the specific teacher education activities and the programs that candidates engage in through your partnership with the University?

Gynger Garcia: 18:26

Yes, so our partnership with Illinois State sort of came knocking at our door about six years ago, and we hadn't really done anything as close really to a university up until that point, so weren't really sure what it all was going to look like, but if, if it was, one thing that we definitely felt good about, is just honoring the community and honoring who's already there, right, and the assets and all the folks that have been there, doing the work. Now partner it with, like, a teacher prep program. It was like, Wait, that's amazing, yeah? Like, let's hear more. And so a teacher prep program with Illinois State, which is about the actual campus, is about two and a half hours from the city, but they do have an office in Chicago, and that office is called the Chicago Teacher Education pipeline. They specifically work with teacher candidates who are focusing on Chicago being their location of choice when it comes to teaching breakthrough then, is the lead agency in East Garfield Park to support students in that trajectory. And so we are just one of five other neighborhoods in the city where this is happening as well. So this particular work happens with Illinois State in Albany Park, in Auburn, Gresham and Little Village and in Pilsen and so those are just various neighborhoods across the city of Chicago, but when it comes to East Garfield Park, it definitely allows us to highlight just being community minded as a teacher. And you know, what does that mean? What does that look like? And how do we even begin that sort of trajectory? Because. Because the fact remains that most Chicago Public School students are either Latino or African American, and the majority of the teaching force continues to be monolingual, white female. That is something worth discussing, talking about, and we start discussing what it means to be culturally conscious, not competent, but conscious, where just understanding that this is an awareness and how you can dedicate to this lifelong work of being more aware of how to come alongside of cultures other than your own. And so those are conversations that we have with pre service teachers pretty regularly, and start to discuss community based assets, which is a whole nother piece. So when we get some pre service teachers kind of coming to the west side for the first time, I definitely say things along the line of, you know, whatever you might have Googled ahead of time, or whatever anyone told you about the west side of Chicago, like, in all transparency, some of that stuff is true, but there's so much more to the neighborhood than what the news will report, and so you'll never know that unless you truly come and spend some time. And so before pre COVID days, all of our work, all of our collaboration, was in the neighborhood, in person together. And so that would mean they would just come out for the day, sometimes for the weekend, depending on the professor, and we would do all kinds of things. We would go inside of school buildings and help set up for events, help clean up for events, have a panel discussion in the community with some scholars from the neighborhood to share a little bit about their perspectives. It's always a hit when we can get parents on the panel and the parents can just be as transparent as ever as to what they love about their kids teachers, what they wish their kids teachers were doing those types of things. We eat at local restaurants, visit local businesses, do some service learning projects, but really sort of just begin to expose them to an urban part of the city. Begin to like I said, have those conversations of cultural consciousness, and begin to have those conversations of an asset based lens. And you know how sometimes it's like, in just an ignorance of not having an asset based lens to no fault of anybody, it's just depending on their experience. But just begin to have those conversations, because most students are not coming from an urban background that we work with, we do have some that are actually from Chicago and are in this program to go back to Chicago to teach. So that's always fun.

Joi Patterson: 22:32

That is always fun. That's actually important. And I wonder if you have any data, but I just want to mention do that we're talking to miss ginger Garcia. She is the Community Liaison for breakthrough, and we're talking about the community organization impact on teacher preparation program. And as we've been talking it is, it's huge. It's not something that I've ever thought about. You know, we have these wonderful relationship with P 12 districts, and I think it's great the work that you're doing, exposing teacher candidates to the urban community. Because I think in going a step further, one of the things that we're doing at Governor State University is that we're implementing the cultural standards. So we're implementing culturally responsive teaching and learning standards into our curriculum, because I think the competencies are also important. We want the students to be as prepared as possible. So as long as our teachers are 80% plus, we have white teachers. We want our teachers to be prepared regardless of ethnicity, right? And we want them to be comfortable in the places that they work, and we want them to choose to work in urban schools and stay there. Tell us what has been the greatest impact of working in teacher preparation program or working with a teacher preparation program.

Gynger Garcia: 24:01

I guess there's many, there's many things that have been really, really cool to see over the years, but I have to say, just a trajectory that I that I've seen. So I'll meet a student as a freshman or sophomore, and they have a little bit of knowledge of the city. I'll say, you know, Have you, have you ever been to Chicago? And they'll say, Yeah, I've been to a Cubs game, or I've been to, like, Magnificent Mile and those types of things, and then kind of really beginning to, like, dig deep and have these conversations and spend time together in the neighborhood. And part of this teacher prep program is a summer immersion program. And that summer immersion program, it's called step up, is a game changer for a lot of them, because they do get to fully immerse in the neighborhood and truly embody what it means to be community minded in education, I think all of these things as you see students go through them, they're truly coming out on the end of it, just better equipped, better prepared, more confident than a teacher candidate who didn't do. Such intentional pipeline work during their four years in college,

Joi Patterson: 25:02

and not that this is not success. Do you find that any teacher candidates decide, oh, this is not for me,

Gynger Garcia: 25:10

absolutely. And I don't take that as not successful, because I feel like this sort of work will do one of two things to teacher candidates, so it will either really excite them and get them seeing themselves as contributors. And this is, this is where I see myself doing the work, or it does the opposite, right? They, they are truly able to reflect and say, You know what? This isn't for me. This is also something that I like to be transparent about, because there is, there's no shame in that, like, that's why you're getting involved so early. So it's not happening at the very end of your college career. And then before you know it, you graduate, you're now, you're looking for a job. And then you realize, you know what, this this is too much. This is not what I signed up for. And that's you know. To go back to what you said about the turnover, with teachers still being just a few years and they're they're walking out. And I think if you look at the reasons why they say it burnt out, underprepared, not supported, those types of things. I did meet a student years ago as a sophomore, and all was going great. We were going through the motions and everything. And then at the end, when we were working to place him as a student teacher in our neighborhood, I got word that he had switched his major to business. I wasn't sure how I felt about that at first, but then after a little while, I was like, You know what? I can't even be mad. He went through the motions, and sort of knew that, you know what? This really isn't what I want to do, and so that's what we want to try to eliminate, right? So we don't have teachers leaving at the end of year one or at the end of year two, or, you know, sometimes you hear they leave mid year, they just leave a classroom with no teacher. And so that's what we don't want, the ability to be able to just stay connected from the beginning and really even offer support into their first and second year as a Chicago Public School teacher through a mentorship program that they have. Is, yeah, is awesome. You

Amy Vujaklija: 26:58

know, it's an interesting conversation to have with people who are outside of education, looking in, wondering, well, why are teachers not staying in the classroom, or why isn't everyone prepared the same way? Why is there a discrepancy? But if you were to do a shout out, if you were to say, hey, at the very minimal, all teacher education programs need to do this, what would that be?

Gynger Garcia: 27:31

What a great question. Let's see. I think if there was one thing that all teacher prep programs should

Joi Patterson: 27:40

do, and you can be honest. Ginger,

Gynger Garcia: 27:43

yeah, I will. I will definitely say that the component of a mentorship program is it's ideal, because I think that coming into this field can be intimidating. You know, you you've got a lot going on, a lot on your plate, just basics. There's a lot going on now. If you want to do more and make sure that you're able to address needs and be community minded, it's double the amount of work you have to do. So I think that that was one of the things I felt such a lack in personally when I was teaching in the classroom, that when I got to see that done purposefully through this teacher prep program, they offer a mentorship program your first and second year teaching whatever school the grad is a part of. When they get their first job, they find a veteran teacher in that school, and both of them are part of the program, mentor and mentee for two years, and they both are able to attend PDS together and get what they need for their certification. Sometimes there's stipends involved for the two of them, but it's a way to say, Hey, you're my person for this year, and so I'm going to need you, and I'm going to need to bounce a lot of ideas off you, and really just having that that honesty and that love, I think that that's huge. Because not to say that it's gets easier on year three, but year one, like, month one, that's definitely it's gotta be one of the toughest months when you're kind of just getting acclimated into your new career, and so just having that person right that you know, like, okay, you know what? I'm not going to feel bad. Going to talk to you after school because I had an awful day like and I need to know how to not have another awful day just like this one. What do I need to do different? Yeah, I think that that's huge.

Amy Vujaklija: 29:32

Mentorship is so important, especially for our career changers who may have been in the corporate world. Joi and I have talked about this, we aren't used to asking for help if we've already been in maybe the private industry that shows weakness when you ask for help. I would like to see what suggestions you would have for other universities who want to reach out to community. Organizations, or what kind of partnerships can they look for to help better prepare our teacher candidates?

Gynger Garcia: 30:08

I definitely think that since we've started this partnership, we have had more opportunities to partner up with various universities. And I think it goes back to what you just said, like coming to the door and just asking, like, hey, you know, this is who we are. This is some of the work we're doing. How could we partner? And then not coming in and saying, Hey, here's what I want to do, but saying, I know that you guys are here, you've been here, and I'd like to know how we can collaborate. I think it's, it's dignifying to honor those that have been there before you, and coming to them to say, hey, I want to grow and I want to evolve, as in this program, or for my students, if it's a professor, how do we do that? I agree with you. Amy, when you said that asking sometimes feels like a weakness, especially when you're younger. So like back to your point, Joi, about how at the beginning of your career, you felt embarrassed to ask for help. I think that that's more common than not, and I do think that asking it comes with a little bit of maturity, right when you kind of just just know that I'm just going to ask and stop wasting time. But it is something that is good to be transparent about, saying like, hey, the bigger your quote, unquote, Rolodex is of people on your side, the the better. So reach out, stay connected, Keep me in your network. Like, let's do this work together, because it term could be a bit cliche, but it's true, it does take a village to do this job, and so let's stay connected to you know, to better help your teaching journey. Okay,

Joi Patterson: 31:39

we're going to use that as an invitation. So thank you very much, because we are looking forward to working with you, personally, working with breakthrough, looking for the opportunities that it has to offer. Because our candidates could definitely use that resource, that exposure. I am just so happy about the work that you're doing. I know you're you're excited, you're a walking billboard for breakthrough, and I can tell that you love your job, you love what you do, and we're happy that there's an organization out there that's helping us prepare teacher candidates.

Amy Vujaklija: 32:15

You are a lifelong educator, and I'm so glad we were able to talk to you today, and your passion is so inspiring.

Gynger Garcia: 32:26

Well, thank you both so much. I appreciate the kind words. I think that the work that you both do of just having this platform and talking about these topics and things that like sometimes get missed, the importance of them, and slowing down and making sure that these topics are sort of picked apart, and the whys and the you know what's working what is and it's so valuable. So I really, I really appreciate that you two are doing this, and absolutely, we would love to partner with you all in the future. And whatever that may look like, you can definitely chat about it. But more than happy and excited to

Amy Vujaklija: 32:59

outstanding great. You have a great rest of your day. We've enjoyed talking to you.

Gynger Garcia: 33:06

Thank you both. So much you as well.

Amy Vujaklija: 33:09

Thank you for listening to teaching and leading with Dr Amy and Dr Joi. Visit our website at G, O, v, s, t.edu/teaching, and leading podcast. To see the show notes from this episode,

Joi Patterson: 33:27

we appreciate Governor State University's work behind the scenes to make publishing possible. Stay tuned for more episodes with Dr Amy and Dr Joi.