New scholarship encourages education trailblazers

Kim Chaudoin | 615.966.6494 | 03/01/2016

 

First-generation or minority students attending a Metro Nashville Public Schools high school who have a passion for teaching underserved populations have a new scholarship opportunity to help fund their educational goals.

Lipscomb University’s College of Education launched the new Pionero Scholars Program, offering a $10,000 merit-based scholarship, this past fall. The first recipients will enroll at Lipscomb beginning fall semester 2016.

“The Pionero Scholars Program seeks to address the gap between the number of immigrant and refugee students and teachers in the Nashville public school district,” says Laura Delgado, program director for the Pionero Scholars Program. “Based on Lipscomb’s values of community, innovation and service, the Pionero Scholars Program is based upon the belief that teachers who share a linguistic and cultural background with their students have a unique role to play in urban schools.”

Delgado says there is particularly a need for teachers who are Latino or first generation college graduates in Nashville.

“This program is offered with the support of a local charitable foundation in an effort to fill gaps in our school system,” she says. “There is particularly a large difference in the number of Latino students in Nashville schools compared to the number of Latino teachers. Not only is it helpful for educators to understand the cultural backgrounds of our students, but to be role models for those students. When they see someone like them in a teaching role, they realize that they, too, can aspire to a career in education.”

According to Metro Nashville Public Schools statistics, the ethnic makeup of the district’s student population compared to the ethnicity of teachers in fall 2015 was: Black - 43.3 percent (student), 25.4 percent (teacher);

• Caucasian – 30.4 percent (student), 72.1 percent (teacher);
• Latino – 21.8 percent (student), 1.4 percent (teacher);
• American Indian – 0.1 percent (student), 0.1 percent (teacher);
• Asian – 4.3 percent (student), 0.8 percent (teacher);
• Two or more races – 0 percent (student), 0.2 percent (teacher); and
• Unknown – 0.1 percent (student), 0 percent (teacher).

Several organizations, including the Albert Shanker Institute, have released reports illustrating the diversity gap between teachers and students. The Lipscomb’s Pioneros Scholars Program is the first of its kind in Nashville, says Delgado.

“We decided to name the program Pionero because that is how trailblazer translates to Spanish,” she says, “but also because in a very real way, these students are pioneers. They are first in their family to attend college, and they will most likely be the first Hispanic teacher in the school they work in. The long-term goal for the program is for these scholarship to become licensed teachers who will return to teach in their own communities.”

Senior Adriana Leon, was one of six siblings whose parents are natives of Mexico, wants to pursue a teaching career and inspire others who have a similar background to consider a similar vocation.

“My parents came to the United States as teenagers,” says Leon, whose parents now live in Jackson, Tennessee, and owns several Mexican restaurants in the area. “They didn’t have much of a formal education – maybe equivalent to about a sixth grade education in the United States - but they are very intelligent people and have been very successful in business.”

Leon says since she was a young girl, she has enjoyed reading and school. When in middle school, Leon remembers that she would often seek assistance with questions about her schoolwork from a neighbor and her friend’s mother because the teachers she had in her public school did not always “provide the best instruction.”

“Also, when I was in middle school, my parents were studying to become citizens of the United States,” Leon recalls. “So for about two years, they studied every day. They had this notebook, and they would practice their English speaking and their writing. They would let me read out loud to them a sentence they would have to write down. They would write it down, and at the end of the 50 sentences I got to go through and correct what they wrote down. That was so fun for me and exciting to get to do that with my parents — for me to be the teacher of these adults.”

Once her parents passed their citizenship test, Leon recalls being very proud of them.

“To know that I was a part of something so big like that just made me feel so proud,” she says.

When it was time for Leon to attend high school, her parents sent her to Jackson Christian School. Leon says her education up to that point did not prepare her for that moment.

“I was not prepared whatsoever,” she recalls. “I did not know how to write a paper. I didn’t have a sense of urgency. So I began to realized how important education was and how it prepares you for the next level of school.”

She says she is grateful for the opportunity to attend Jackson Christian School, where she was well prepared for college.

“All of these experiences factor into my decision to be an education major,” says Leon, a middle school education major at Lipscomb, “because I know first-hand how important it is. And I have loved being at Lipscomb University. It has been a great experience for me.”

Leon’s mother recently began taking courses to prepare to take the GED exam to earn a high school diploma equivalency.

“It’s just wild because she was having to learn concepts like negative numbers. I don’t even remember how I learned about those along the way,” says Leon, who is a member of Pi Delta social club and FUTURO, the campus chapter of the professional association for Latino college students. “And I was having to teach her about the most basic concepts. But she was learning all of these basic things as an older adult, and we would sit down together and learn about fractions, multiples and things like that.”

Leon says her mother’s successful pursuit of her GED was “inspiring because of someone her age who doesn’t necessarily need that at this point in her life wanted to pursue something bigger than what she had. Now her hope and dream is that she will go to college.”

As a future middle school teacher, Leon says among her big career goals are to be a mentor to students and to inspire others to pursue a career in education.

“I think it’s important for minorities of any sort to enter the education field because kids need someone who looks like them,” admits Leon. “I was in an ELL classroom in the fall and I looked like the students who were in that class. I think that was important and so much more intriguing for them to see someone who looks like them up there in front of them teaching. I think it’s also helpful to have someone who culturally understands the differences they are facing.”

Leon says she is “stuck” in a third culture situation where she is born in America, but has parents from Mexico.

“So, I’m not completely American and I’m not fully Mexican. I’m kind of in the middle,” she says. “There are a lot of students out there who are also stuck in this third culture situation. They don’t always understand why this is happening in my school if it is totally different in my home.”

“For minorities to enter the education field gives a different cultural perspective to what you can do in the classroom. You can communicate with students better — not just in a certain language or tongue, but also by being able to connect with them on a cultural level  … being able to see the world as they do,” she continues.

Students who are eligible to apply for the Pionero Scholars Program must be a graduate of an MNPS high school; be of an ethnicity that is a minority on Lipscomb’s campus; and be a U.S. citizen, permanent resident, DACAmented or other status with work authorization. Before applying to the program, high school seniors must have already applied to and been admitted to Lipscomb University and have a minimum of a 24 on the ACT. Applicants will also be required to submit a brief essay that outlines why they want to be become a teacher or why education is important to them.

For more information, visit www.lipscomb.edu/education/pionero-scholars-program or email pionero [at] lipscomb.edu.