ANNA KING
Assistant News Editor
After traveling thousands of miles from the Malibu community and her hometown in Mitchellville, Md., to teach English in Argentina as a Fulbright scholar, 2004 Pepperdine mathematics alumna Ashley Foster Tucker, who earned her teaching credential through Pepperdine, continues to use those educational and cultural tools from her experience.
She teaches math to middle school students, who speak English as a second language, in Phoenix.
Although she was working mainly with students at the university level while in Argentina, Tucker’s experience with them and their culture has continued to help her with the students who she instructs daily in the United States.
“I think teaching in Argentina made me more sensitive to another culture and, as a result, makes it easier to relate to students,” Tucker said of her students in Phoenix, many of whom immigrated from Mexico. “It was the same as when I taught in Costa Rica. I was leaving one culture and joining another. They don’t know how much to hold onto from Mexico, and some are embarrassed by the fact that they speak Spanish.”
Following graduation, Tucker went to Costa Rica for a summer to teach math at a missionary school for five months, and upon her return to the States she was married in Stauffer chapel to her husband and Pepperdine alumnus Nathan Tucker. The following academic year she went to teach in Argentina. Upon receiving a Fulbright scholarship, Tucker and her husband moved to Santa Rosa, Argentina, where she taught English to university students who were training to become English teachers in their communities, as well as conducted some research in local high schools to learn about their education system. After her term in Argentina, Tucker moved to Phoenix, where she now teaches.
“In my classroom, I really just try to get kids excited about math who are not generally too enthused about their education,” Tucker said, about her middle school classes. “I try to stress the importance of education. For all of my students, English is their second language, so I end up teaching a lot of English as well even though I am a math teacher.”
Tucker said she has known that she wanted to be a teacher since she was a child.
“It was through my studies and student teaching in Los Angeles that I realized it was a good fit for me to use my gifts,” Tucker said. “The students, they make me laugh a lot. Some of them are difficult students, and they challenge me everyday in a little different way. My day has a lot of variety and challenges.”
Susan Giboney, assistant professor of education, credential analyst and Liberal Arts coordinator, said that through the programs offered at Pepperdine, such as multi-subject credentials and the liberal arts major, graduates are ready for any avenue of teaching they pursue.
“Our participants in the teacher education program are constantly applauded by their principals as being very well prepared,” Giboney said. “When they graduate, they are not only fully credentialed, but also know how to walk into a classroom, teach a lesson and assess students. They are all very professional and very prepared.”
Tucker said students who are at Pepperdine and working toward completing the credential program needed to take the opportunities, such as student teaching, as seriously as possible while they are available.
“Student teaching is the one opportunity to be the sponge and visit lots of different teachers’ classrooms,” Tucker said. “Make an appointment on your own to visit a teacher you heard a lot about.”
Tucker said it was professors in the program, such as Dr. Kendra Killpatrick and Dr. Stella Erbes, who helped Tucker realize her potential and learn how to love her students.
“Dr. Killpatrick was one of my first great examples of what a good math teacher should look like,” Tucker said. “I didn’t have very many good math teachers throughout school, and she showed me how to use cooperative learning, and make a student’s learning their own.”
The teacher education program is part of the humanities and teacher education department, which offers students degrees in English, liberal arts, history, humanities and philosophy. Many graduates of the program use their degrees to continue into the education field, either through single-subject credentials, usually used for high school or middle school teachers, or through a multiple-subject credential, which elementary teachers are required to possess.
Tucker said students should learn to internalize the concepts that are discussed the classroom, however difficult they are to understand and apply.
“Constantly try to imagine the educational theories they teach in the class and what they would look like in the school classroom,” Tucker said. “Try to turn it into something concrete, think about how you would use that concept in your own classroom.”
Since the field of teaching is so broad and far reaching, Tucker suggested students take the time to feel out all the opportunities available before they begin such a life changing profession.
“Don’t feel pressure to necessarily take the first job that’s made available,” Tucker said.
“I think it’s an exciting career that allows you to grow personally at all times and constantly be changing. It’s not something you can ever completely master, so there is a lot of room for professional growth.”
Through the programs offered to undergraduate students, Giboney said believes the experience of the university is one that shapes the future teachers in more ways than simply through book learning.
04-06-2006