Sharon Lee, A&S ’24, who always wanted to be a teacher, found comfort in the classroom during her moves from South Korea to California to New Jersey. Camille Steahly discovered her passion for teaching unexpectedly, working at a math tutoring center after a surprise career pivot.
Though their paths differed, both Lee and Steahly found a way to achieve their goal of becoming educators through the TeachingWell Teacher Residency Program.
As part of the program’s first cohort, the Grasmick Scholars will earn a Master of Education for Teaching Professionals in 16 months, while also student-teaching math or science in Baltimore City middle and high schools. TeachingWell students receive tuition support and a stipend to support living expenses, and after graduation, sign on to teach in Baltimore for four years as a requirement of the program.
The Johns Hopkins School of Education created TeachingWell to help address a statewide shortage of secondary science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) teachers.
“There’s a crisis in the labor market right now in teacher education, and this shortage of teachers is particularly noticeable in STEM,” School of Education Dean Christopher C. Morphew, PhD, says. “Fewer teaching students are starting, fewer are finishing, and teachers are leaving the field in higher numbers than ever before.”
“STEM is really important for students, no matter if they’re planning on going to college or pursuing a STEM career,” Steahly says. “I think the fundamental skills that you build with a STEM education are crucial for problem solving and critically analyzing the world around you.”
According to Morphew, several barriers are keeping STEM college graduates from entering the classroom, including the high cost of teacher education and concerns about professional burnout. TeachingWell addresses these challenges through tuition support and a unique focus on life design and wellness, from the participants’ first day of classes through their fourth year of teaching.
“We’re preparing the students to understand that teaching is a very difficult profession with mental health concerns that result in burnout for a lot of new teachers,” Morphew says. “So, if they become teachers in year one, we’re still following them through their final year in the program, providing them with mentoring, coaching, and more mental health support.”
TeachingWell’s comprehensive support system comes with significant costs. According to Morphew, none of it would be possible without donor backing.
“The program cannot exist without philanthropy,” Morphew says. “We’re providing wraparound support to these students, and doing that is impossible without donor support.”
TeachingWell’s full-tuition funding was an important factor in both Lee’s and Steahly’s decisions to enroll.
“I really wanted to teach, but I didn’t want to go into debt,” Lee says. “This program’s being fully funded removed those financial barriers to achieving my dream.”
“When I was working two part-time jobs, I didn’t have the time to really pursue another program. So having the opportunity to come to Hopkins and really focus on student teaching and learning has been really nice. It’s something that I wouldn’t be able to do without the generosity of the donors,” Steahly says.
In fact, the program’s first cohort is named the Grasmick Scholars after one such donor, Nancy Grasmick, Ed ’80 (EdD), who served as State Superintendent of Maryland Public Schools for 20 years.
“Dr. Grasmick has been a longtime friend of the School of Education,” Morphew says. “She generously agreed to support this program, and so, in honor of that, and her service to Maryland and to education in general, we named the first cohort of students after her.”
For Lee, TeachingWell has been more than just a pathway to becoming a teacher — it’s been an opportunity to create the same supportive classroom environments that first inspired her journey into education.
“I had never stepped foot into a classroom as a teacher before this program, so it was a little intimidating,” Lee says of her placement in a 12th-grade math class. “But I really got to know the students as people. Some of them said, ‘I’m so glad you’re here.’ It’s made me excited for what’s next.”
Morphew sees the TeachingWell students’ enthusiasm as a promising sign for the future educators and students in Baltimore’s classrooms. As he watches the Grasmick Scholars develop their teaching skills, he hopes more cohorts will follow in their footsteps, impacting students for years to come.
“It’s really opening the student teachers’ eyes to what it means for Baltimore City students to learn STEM, and seeing their joy and their passion extended to the students in Baltimore is really exciting,” Morphew says. “And I’m hoping that 10 years down the line, we’re going to have produced a number of scholars who are dramatically changing the landscape of Baltimore classrooms.”
Topics: Alumni, Faculty and Staff, Students, School of Education, Support Scholars