The MCIULearns Podcast
The MCIU Learns podcast is where education leaders, innovators, and experts share insights and best practices to elevate learning and empower schools. Each episode features thought-provoking conversations with thought leaders, presenters, and program directors from Montgomery County Intermediate Unit (MCIU) and beyond. Whether we’re discussing cutting-edge programs, professional development strategies, or the latest trends in education, our goal is to inspire and build capacity in educators, administrators, and all those passionate about improving student outcomes.
The MCIULearns Podcast
Innovating Pathways to Teacher Certification with Martin Luther School
Join us for an insightful conversation with MCIU project consultant Jesse Gluckman and the Martin Luther School, as they share how their innovative Teacher Apprenticeship Program (TAP) is reshaping teacher preparation.
Learn how Martin Luther School integrates hands-on classroom experience with formal education, offering a competency-based learning model. By aligning with a university's vision for teaching, the program allows participants to take classes during the school day, breaking down financial barriers through innovative learning approaches.
When it comes to me, I believe my why really has nothing to do with me at all. I think it has something to do with the younger black generation needing a positive role model other than an athlete or an artist Not saying anything wrong with artists, but just giving them a different role model and aspects of being a teacher and this opportunity to present myself. And once I started, I realized that I can make a change from inside instead of outside.
Speaker 2:The thing I think that's been really important for us is as a school of 220 students K-12, about 85% of them are African-Americans and about another probably close to 80% are boys, and when I first got here, there were two black teachers in the school. We're now over 50 percent of African-American teachers, so we really have this experience for our students that a lot of our teacher apprenticeship participants really like bring that to the table and that's been really significant for us. We started with a cohort of 10 people two years ago who had varying college credits Some of them had none and we currently have six student teaching who will be graduating either in January or June podcast.
Speaker 3:My name is Brandon Langer and I'm the Director of Innovation and Strategic Partnerships at the Montgomery County Intermediate Unit in Norristown, Pennsylvania. This is our conversation with leaders in education, people helping to move education forward on behalf of students, families and communities across Montgomery County and Pennsylvania, and I am really excited today to be sitting down again with one of the project consultants from our Office of Organizational Professional Learning. I'll let him introduce himself and our guest.
Speaker 4:Hi, my name is Jesse Gluckman. I am a project consultant. My initiatives are inclusive practices and universal design for learning. I am happy to be here today with someone I've been working with for about five years in their school at the Martin Luther School Dr Ava Morrison.
Speaker 2:Hi everyone. I'm Ava Morrison. I'm the very proud head of Martin Luther School. Martin Luther School is an approved private school in Plymouth meeting. We are part of a larger nonprofit social service organization called Gemma Services and we provide a very comprehensive academic, social, emotional opportunity for students from across the greater Philadelphia area, including some students traveling here from the state of Delaware every day.
Speaker 3:Well, thank you for joining us, jesse, thanks for getting us rolling today, because I've been doing a lot of work at the IU myself with teacher preparation pathways and that's kind of what we're going to talk about today, because there's a really unique model and cool thing happening here at Martin Luther School. So, ava, if you could just tell us kind of what inspired Martin Luther School to develop this program, because it really centered kind of around apprenticeship, correct, and how we prepare teachers differently, moving forward.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so a little bit comes out of my personal background, which I'll take a minute to explain. This is my sixth year at Martin Luther School. I came from a public school district where I was part of the executive leadership team for probably close to a decade, and when I first got here, one of the things that I noticed is that there were so many staff. We have 140 staff. There were so many staff that had incredible expertise in terms of relating to the students, building relationships with the students and helping the students to improve their outlook and their ability to understand their own walk and journey, and so I combined that.
Speaker 2:I'm originally from Switzerland, and Switzerland has a really strong apprenticeship model, and I thought, wow, imagine if we could start looking at teaching as if teachers were apprentices, because really that's what we know. As if teachers were apprentices, because really that's what we know. We know that every good teacher has probably had a model, whether it was the first time they went into the classroom as pre-service students, or maybe during the student teaching internship part, or maybe it was a mentor, or maybe it was even a teacher that they remember from their own experience, but I know that for me, watching a teacher do something really great always inspired me to do something really great. It didn't take me more than a couple of times of watching somebody and then for me to put it into practice in my own classroom, and so I thought well, we have all of these folks here who really get kids, but a lot of them don't have degrees. So how could we connect those two things?
Speaker 3:I think that tees us up great to talk about how this does look different. What does this program look like, Jesse, in terms of structure and operating in AVA2? Just want to talk a little bit about what we're talking about in terms of actual implementation.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it was really sort of exciting when AVA brought the idea. At the time I was an adjunct professor and you know I was exploring personalized learning initiatives, so like we were thinking more about competency-based ways of getting students to show up in a way that allows them to access material. So I paired what Ava was thinking about with an apprenticeship model and started thinking through like the competency-based model, they're similar model and started thinking through like the competency-based model, they're similar. So what we're looking for is really we want to prepare students and teachers or student teachers that are really able to get the concept deeply and not so much at that theoretical, just level. We wanted that classroom application and that practice to be embedded into the program, wanted that classroom application and that practice to be embedded into the program.
Speaker 4:So we had this great idea and it was really important to find a university or college that would also support this thinking and that did take us down. You know it took us a lot of contacts and a lot of explaining before we found the right partner and this is where I will give Martin Luther a lot of credit. They're very clear in their vision of what they want learning to look like. So when we were looking to meet with colleges and universities we were able to clearly say what we believe teaching and learning looks like and how that aligned. We were able to align that to the college's vision of teaching and learning, so it was easier for us to find that partner for the accreditation part.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and as far as the outcome here, what does the in a short version, what does the experience look like?
Speaker 2:So it's evolved, and I'm a big fan of building the plane mid -flight, because it never takes off if you don't, and so I'm willing to let it crash and it has. We've had our bumps. We were really, really lucky because Gemma Services is a board of directors and I was fortunate enough to meet what one of them asked me to lunch quite a long time ago. And as we were sitting down, he said well, you know, people usually ask me for money and so, and I said, I don't know what you're talking about. I'm not asking you for anything, you know, ha, ha. And sure enough, I told him about this idea I had of how we could get our paraprofessional staff to become teachers, and by the time lunch was over, he offered me 10 full scholarships, or assured me that there would be a way to get it. And, in fact, the donors who support Gemma Services have been very generous. The donors who support Gemma Services have been very generous, and so we have 15 of our staff currently fully funded, up to and including if they have any educational debt because that can be a real showstopper somebody who tries college and then has college debt or student loans that weren't repaid and then they can't go on. They're stuck until that's paid off and they can't get a higher paying job. So we worked really, really hard to make sure that, no matter what the obstacle was, we would remove that. We realized pretty soon in that we would need to have some folks who really understood the college credit process because also, a lot of our people have maybe gone to this community college and maybe a semester here, a class there of our people have maybe gone to this community college and maybe a semester here, a class there. So we actually have somebody on staff who is full-time at another university, who works individually as a sort of student success counselor and she makes sure she's their advocate, she makes sure all of the credits transfer and she looks after them in a way that maybe the university wasn't able to.
Speaker 2:Because we're so unusual, we also try and offer a lot of the classes during the school day and, by the way, I'll say we started with a cohort of 10 people two years ago who had varying college credits. Some of them had none, and of those 10 people, two of them no longer work at Martin Luther School. One of them graduated. She graduated summa cum laude the top student in the special education program at the university we were partnering with and we currently have six student teaching so and who will be graduating either in January or June. So those folks have worked incredibly hard to be where they are. They're just, they're taking class after class. We also discovered that if we do the associates level classes first, which we have a partnership with the Community College of Philadelphia, we can knock that out, and so we have paraprofessionals, or teacher apprentices really, who are now maybe taking up to five classes sometimes and really making that work.
Speaker 2:We try to teach classes on campus. Jesse has taught in our program. I have a pretty big network of administrators across Montgomery County and I just recruit them and say, hey, do you want to come in and teach for us? And unfortunately the university we were working with closed and so we're with a new program now. Things are shaping up a little bit differently. It doesn't matter. We have about six new folks who are in the program.
Speaker 2:The thing I think that's been really important for us is as a school of 220 students K-12, about 85% of them are African-Americans and about another probably close to 80% are boys, and when I first got here there were two black teachers in the school we're now over 50% of African American teachers. So we really have this experience for our students that obviously we need mirrors and windows and we have both. And so you know, the identity piece and the culture piece to learning is so important and so, like a lot of our teacher apprenticeship participants really like bring that to the table and that's been really significant for us. We have, I can think of a couple of teacher apprentices and who are student teaching now, who are, like, already master teachers, and it's just amazing to walk into their classrooms and see what's happening with the kids.
Speaker 4:I think that was something we were really aware of. We wanted quality, so we weren't going to just go out and do this adventure and just produce mediocre. Our standard has always been like we have to do something really special with this amazing opportunity of a free education. So that level of rigor and that expectation of excellence has really sort of it's amazing to see the result of that.
Speaker 3:Well, and I think it recognizes something that is yes to the fact it's free from the standpoint of we're getting tuition covered or we're giving books or however the program's structured Right. But the one thing that will never be free is the investment that person is putting into their not just their own future but the future of young people, and I think that that is one of the biggest things we need to remember when we go into these programs. We're building more unique pathways or apprenticeship models, whatever that is. We can remove the financial barrier and it's clear that we need to for especially that paraeducator group. That's one group I've been working a lot with in our partnership with Montgomery County Community College at the IU. But even removing that, there are still other impediments that they need support with.
Speaker 3:You mentioned a great support network or great level of support that you're providing the teachers by helping them navigate what higher ed looks like or how they get credits, or here's what my past looks like For this group of people. That is essential for them to be successful, because many of them either haven't gone to school or it was a long time ago, or it's fragmented, and that fragmented student profile can be really daunting if it's only on the student themselves to kind of sort through that. So I think it's great that you're recognized that and helping provide people that pathway. You mentioned some great success in terms of who's in the pipeline, who's coming through. I think one of my questions is you mentioned you have a new university partner. What's the long-term vision or goal? Is it to sustain ongoing cohorts or what does that look like for you?
Speaker 2:I think very much so. We want to continue to be a teaching school, meaning that you know, some of the people who are in the teacher apprenticeship program will stay at Martin Luther School their whole careers and really enjoy that. They're going to go out there so well equipped to serve kids and be able to reach them on different levels in ways that I think maybe not everybody has had the same experience of working at a school with children who have challenges around emotional and behavioral regulation, and yet we are striving for, and will continue to strive for, academic excellence and I would say, like I would match, show me a high achieving public school district or an independent school. That's who we want to become, for the students and for the teachers at Martin Luther School.
Speaker 3:I think my final question for you, Ava, is what advice? This is a very different approach and, as you said, a lot of work, a lot of sweat equities put into it to try and make it come to life. What advice would you give someone in the field looking to take or build something like you guys have been able to put together here?
Speaker 2:You can't just set it up and think it's going to go, because you're going to hit so many bumps along the way and you're going to need to be able to have a pretty close relationship with the people who are going through it so you understand what's happening, so you can adjust for all of the challenges, Like all of the ways that we attempt to support the teaching apprentices through the program continue to evolve. And you know I'll get somebody who will come and bug me pretty much on a weekly basis and say you know this isn't working or this is working or whatever, and then, like, you have to consider that so you can't just say, oh, I'm going to have this program, I'm going to throw a bunch of money at it and then it's just going to work. It's not. It's really the human element and the commitment to making sure that everybody gets to succeed that matters the most.
Speaker 3:And you said you like to build the plane in the air. I mean, if you look at any software company anymore, that's how they do it, right? They don't wait until they're done to release something, they put it out there and they're constantly iterating, right? That is the way of the world now across many industries. This seems like a great example of it being executed within the educational one. So kudos to you.
Speaker 2:Thank you. I will say one thing I know, like I was very aware, that I'm a build it in the air kind of person.
Speaker 2:I think also communicating that from the beginning would have been helpful, and making it like that piece of like, because they're human beings who are involved in it and they have their daily frustrations, especially if you're like a full-time staff and then you're a full-time student, and then it's being built midair and there are all of these bumps. And so, to anticipate the misunderstandings that might occur and be very clear that, guys, there are going to be a lot of problems that we have to fix together, because I don't know what the problems are yet, because I don't know what I don't know we haven't done it yet.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly, all right, I'd like to take the conversation now kind of pivot a little bit, and we have a couple of representatives that are current participants in the TAP program. I'm joined by Zaire and Quinn, and we're really excited to hear what this experience has been like for the two of you. What got you involved, why you feel this is a positive program, both for you your career but also for the students you work with. So, zaire, I'll come to you. What kind of stood out to you about this opportunity? Why'd you decide to kind of take a step forward with it?
Speaker 1:I guess, if we're being honest here, I can say the most obvious answer is that it was free. Okay, so, coming from just working a job and getting an opportunity to get a career to further my life, it was like a no brainer. But other than that, it was the whole aspect of being free, because I think everybody knows how much college costs nowadays. So that was what it was for me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we talked about that a little bit about that. The ability to remove that barrier is a big one. There are people that want to move forward, there are people that want to be at work with kids, there are people that want to advance a career in education, but that is one of the first things that we need to address in order to bring you know an equitable opportunity across education and increase representation of people of color in our spaces, with our students. So I'm glad that you took advantage of that opportunity, quinn. For you, what stood out, for you, to get involved.
Speaker 5:What stood out for me was also the same thing of a bit being free, but it working with my schedule. So it was a positive that it was here on campus. I didn't have to commute somewhere else. You know I was still being able to collaborate with my team here and learn and grow within MLS.
Speaker 4:I'm going to push both of you because I've had this conversation when I was your teacher. But I always say, like that's great right, like it's free, it's convenient, but I always made sure that you had a really strong why? Because teaching is hard, right. So why do you want to do this for kids?
Speaker 5:So it came natural for me. I don't remember, if Ms Ava remembers, when I first started on this campus I think I was in the math classroom with Ms Cass and I was supporting students. And Ms Ava came in one day and Ms Cass told her oh, she's a natural, she does this and that is just me being me. When I was a teaching assistant, I would support the kids in math, so it was just something natural that I didn't know I had because I didn't like math. I don't know where it came from, but knowing that I support the kids better and I have grown to love math, that was my why Like. Okay, I'm going to keep pushing forward for this.
Speaker 1:When it comes to me, I believe my why really has nothing to do with me at all. I think it has something to do with the younger black generation needing a positive role model other than an athlete or an artist Not saying anything wrong with artists, but just giving them a different role model and aspects of being a teacher and this opportunity to present myself. And once I started, I realized that I can make a change from inside instead of outside. So that was my why originally. Now it's a little more detailed than just being a role model. It's more so being that everyday role model other than the ones you can see on TV. You come to work. I mean, well, I come to work. They come to school and they see me every day trying to change their life from the inside, be there when they need them. And this is not all for me, this is just the beginning. I don't know where I might go after teaching, but it might be a little mayor layer.
Speaker 3:So it doesn't get any better than those responses. I mean because you're dead on, jesse, we have to anchor to why we do this. But both of you to your point, quinn, it's just in you, like you can just tell when it's just in you, like you can just tell. I met you three minutes ago and I can tell already that you were born to do this work with young people, so I can tell that you have more than just a desire to do this. One thing you know get over this one hurdle. It's about wow, look at what lies beyond. And the best thing about that is knowing that kids are hearing and seeing that from you every day. They're seeing a man walk into the room and own that idea of being successful model that in front of them. That's huge. That's more than what we're going to teach them in a math book. Right To actually aspire, to grow as a human, to contribute and have vision for who and what we want to be. I don't know. That's really exciting.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's like, and when you see them in action, right. So we talked about that. We talked about having exemplars of teachers. That's what this program is producing and you're going to see it through the rest of the conversation.
Speaker 3:Yep, I'm kind of curious. From the example or from the experience itself, you know taking classes we heard that they happen sometimes during the day or you're obviously working and learning. You know simultaneously what's that experience like, been for you and what are the goods and challenges of going about learning that way of going about learning.
Speaker 5:That way I can start. I will say, as I said before, the good is it being here on campus. It's fitting into our schedule, I think. For me I only had to go off of campus once and it was still fitting into our schedule. They made sure that we were able to get there in enough time. The bad for me it was the process. How long? Because this is my second time getting a degree, so I was used to taking two, three classes at once. We started off a little slow because we were you know, this is something new, so it had to be figured out. So, because the pace of it was not as fast as I would like it, it was like oh, this is dragging, I'm ready for it to be over. That was the bad. But looking here, I'm in my last semester, finally, and it's all worth it.
Speaker 1:I guess I can say something similar to Quinn, because she started before me so I was able to see them go through it first and then talking. I think I came in his office and asked, even maybe three times long conversations, deciding if I wanted to do it. Actually, when it first came a part of the school, I didn't really have a choice. She came to me and said we're doing the TARP program, you're joining, and I was just like I'm't really have a choice. She came to me and said we're doing the TAP program, you're joining, and I was just like I'm not really sure if I want to be a teacher. So it took me a while to jump on board.
Speaker 1:But, to quote you say, maybe building in the air, we was like I wasn't the first but Quintin was the first. So, like a lot of the things that we came across was stuff that we all had to figure out together, that's the TAP teachers as well as like administrators. So I would say that was the difficult part for me, because when I joined I didn't ask the proper questions about things that I should have knew or that I wanted to know. But now that I'm in it and I see that all right. Well, I don't know, and I'm going to ask people that they don't know the answer to either, because we're trying to figure it out together. But that's one thing I do appreciate, because if I didn't know the answer and I came to somebody that I looked to for the answers and they don't know, and they told me, like I don't know, figure it out, then I probably would have left honestly, yeah, that support's really important.
Speaker 3:We talked about that Ava just in terms of needing to have those as supports, especially if we're going to approach learning differently. And now I want to turn the that's kind of like the functional part of the question. Now I want to know how it has affected you in your current roles, like your daily practice when you show up for kids. What has this experience been like and say you're kind of referenced like I don't know. I I'm gonna have to play back what you said like three or four times, cause there were a couple of really good points in there that I want to make sure we get. But how has this experience shaped?
Speaker 5:I show up, even when I can't show up for myself, because I know that they need us. I know life goes on for us and just as well as them. So I try to encourage them to do their best, be their best, and I try to make math fun. I just had a conversation in math. What am I going to need? Percentage for Go number, percent. You can use that for groceries when you're going shopping for your paychecks. So I try to remind them like you are going to need this. We are here for you just as well as everyone else is here for you. Sometimes they hear it and sometimes they don't, but building those bonds really help.
Speaker 1:I just remind them that it's bigger than what it seemed because, like I was in that chair before and I didn't have, like Quinn said, what am I using percentages for? I still question whether I learned some algebra before, because I haven't used it yet.
Speaker 3:You're not doing parabolas every day. I'm the fun teacher, vertex. I teach science, I get to make stuff, but isn't that fascinating, though, the fact that math and science are so linked in every facet. But we struggle in education, and I love what you're saying, though, because I think any good teacher recognizes that, that reality, that huh yeah, maybe that doesn't.
Speaker 3:And as long as that sticks with you, you can be successful. You can have a long career in education, because you'll never get tired of asking why, why are we doing it this way, why are? And you'll the ability to reinvent yourself, your classroom and then, therefore, what your students are. I don't know. That's really cool. So here we need to hang out more. Man, jesse, I'm curious from your perspective. You know just you said you taught in the program. Obviously you work with the school in a couple of different capacities. What's been your big takeaway? You know, if you were to tell someone about what's going on here, how do you quantify it for people?
Speaker 4:First of all, I give Martin Luther School a lot of credit because to do such a risky program right, something that is really unknown in my opinion, very progressive, progressive to find the quality people that they found that just work here and then provide them the opportunity to the career of teaching I really applaud that effort.
Speaker 4:I also think that there's something special about anyone that works with emotional support students. To have the capacity to see that those students deserve a really quality education, even though you're met with some ugly behavior sometimes, is really empowering. That's empowering. And to take a school like Martin Luther who focuses and gets that right and then gives a pathway to teaching, that's going to amplify that message that we can do really good things even if it's hard. That I think is worth putting a spotlight on and making sure that we grow that in more than just one space, because it's power and I think that in our profession we need people like Quinn and Zaire and the rest of the TAP program. All the participants are amazing and we're giving them a leg up and we're giving them an opportunity to join us and I think that that's powerful and I can't be prouder to be here on campus and then a part of the TAP program. It's really really cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, this has been a very enlightening conversation. As I said, I've been working on this from a part of the TAP program. It's really, really cool. Yeah, this has been a very enlightening conversation. As I said, I've been working on this from kind of a different angle at the IU lens, with some different populations, but still focused on paraeducators. Really cool to see it not just talked about a tangible example of it happening in practice. Jesse said it great. We can do great things, even if they're hard, and often they're going to. Even if they're hard and often they're going to be better if they're hard because it means that we're doing something that hasn't been forged before and it needs to if we want to hit these different goals of increasing the teacher pipeline, hit the goals of increasing representation in classrooms. So kudos again to everybody here involved. This was a really great conversation. Anything anyone wants to chime in with before we wrap up today?
Speaker 1:Miss Ava.
Speaker 2:Well, I did already talk earlier. Just hearing your stories makes me feel really proud and I had forgotten, miss Quinn, that you worked with Cassandra. But it has been a delight to watch you and, you know, to watch you go from working one-on-one with a student discovering your love of mathematics, your desire to see your kids be mathematicians, and then just walking into your classroom and seeing the confidence and then also just seeing the student engagement. It's just, it's tremendous, and so that makes me feel really, really good. So, thank you, thank you, and thank you for your comment about even when you can't show up for yourself. I know what that's like and I appreciate that a lot. I think Zaire might eventually enter politics.
Speaker 3:He's a mayor right.
Speaker 2:Because he has the talent, but I also love seeing him develop and figuring out, even in the context of a school. How do you make things happen? How do you influence other people? It's obvious you have the influencing of the kids. They admire you, they want to be you, they you're their role model. Both of you are, and so many other people here. But then also watching you like okay, well, how do I make changes at the school at a larger scale, and seeing your development from when you first came to like figuring out, oh, if I, you know, if I want to make something happen, how do I go about it? And so, yeah, it's, it's really, really rewarding, awesome.
Speaker 3:Well, once again, thank you all for a great conversation For those that are listening. We do the MCI Learns podcast periodically. We're moving very quickly almost to a weekly podcast at this point. So many great stories to share from across Montgomery County. If you are one of those, please reach out to me through the MCIU. I'm happy to bring on more examples of really innovative, creative work going on, like we see here at Martin Luther School. Please reach out, Please follow us on social media at MCIU Learns and we look forward to the next episode of the MCIU Learns podcast. Thanks everybody you.