Pike/Lesley University Collaborative
GRADUATE TESTIMONIALS
"The Pike School Teacher Training Program was a phenomenal experience for me. I entered the program right out of college and was a member of a group of 5 interns from varying backgrounds and life-experiences. My year at Pike was a time of learning and collaboration. It was also a time of great personal and professional growth. As a Pike intern I was treated as a valuable member of the school community allowing me to experience and understand the inner-workings and decision-making processes within and beyond the classroom.
From the outset I was interested in early childhood education and the head of the program was able to place me in a kindergarten classroom for the first semester and a first grade classroom for the second semester allowing me to gain valuable experience working and learning in the grades I wanted to ultimately teach. As an intern I was able to experience everything from setting up a classroom for the fall, to parent-teacher conferences, daily successes and struggles with teaching lesson and closing the classroom for the year. The lower school teachers at Pike live by the team-approach to planning, so I was able to observe and collaborate with six teachers as a results of this approach. It was at Pike that I learned the true value of collaboration with colleagues.
I wholeheartedly believe that my hands-on experiences with lesson planning and teaching over the course of an entire academic year helped me to get my current job as a first grade teacher. My cooperating teachers knew me very well and were able to guide me in my teaching decisions and provide honest recommendations. When the time came to start applying to teaching positions this was invaluable."
Stephanie Dennington
Grade 1 Teacher
Marion E. Zeh Elementary School
Northborough, MA
"My experience with The Pike School/Lesley University School-based Internship/M.Ed. Program is beyond words. After teaching for 3 years in the Sudbury Public Schools as a fourth grade teacher, I attended an International Job Fair, hoping to teach overseas. Because of my references and professional development at The Pike School, I was a strong candidate for many elementary teaching positions throughout the world. I am now teaching at the International School of Beijing as a third grade teacher, and I can be certain that without my background at Lesley and Pike, I would not have the confidence, knowledge, or capability to teach at an International institution.
Not only do the graduate classes pertain to the ongoing development of a new teacher, but the hands-on experience and the real-life teaching that takes place at Pike is an enormous benefit to such a program. Being able to start and finish an entire year of teaching while learning from true professionals with years of experience allows for a strong background in the field of education from the start. The teachers at Pike are people that I will have a lifelong relationship with simply because they helped me to get to where I am today. I continue to speak highly of the experience I had with Pike and urge anyone who is interested to contact me with questions."
Kimberly Walton
3rd Grade Teacher
International School of Beijing
Three years
My time at Pike through the collaborative program with Lesley was a unique, challenging, and unbelievably enriching experience. I believe that the combination of the comprehensive, fast-tracked masters program at Lesley and the hands-on, cohort-based teaching internship at Pike was what gave me the edge during my search for employment at an independent school in Southern California. While Lesley's name certainly carried some weight, as far as I was from Massachusetts, it was the fact that I had student-taught at an independent school like Pike that enabled me to present myself for as a strong candidate for employment at schools on the west coast, where I had no previous work experience in education.
Beyond simply getting in the door at a well-regarded school like CEE, where I currently teach first grade, my experience working with the faculty at Pike in conjunction with professors and advisors at Lesley prepared me for a truly collaborative approach to teaching. CEE uses a team-teaching philosophy, and after working with two different teams during my internship, I felt confident that I would not only be able to continue working literally side by side with another teacher, but that in fact this is how I would prefer to teach. Particularly as a new teacher, the notion of continuing to learn and receive guidance from a veteran teacher (in my case, my teaching partner has been teaching at CEE for 25 years) while still being on equal footing with her in terms of responsibility and accountability, was too good to pass up. I am now in my third year with the same partner, and I couldn't imagine teaching any other way. My time at Pike with the Kindergarten and 5th grade teams, and with my cohort of other Lesley grad students, showed me the benefits of collaborating with others in order to create lessons, design curriculum, and make day-to-day decisions that best serve students.
I am fortunate to have experienced the very holistic and practical approach to education subscribed to by Margaret and those with whom she makes this program possible at Lesley and at Pike. While my placement at Pike may have been merely an internship that was required in order for me to receive my masters degree in the timely fashion I was hoping for (having already spent a year teaching in my own classroom in a public school in Massachusetts), my experience there was certainly more than a mere technicality that I fulfilled. From the moment I arrived there, I instantly felt like part of the Pike community, and was never made to feel like a temporary employee. I was allowed to engage, to participate, to truly be part of the educational process of so many children - as I myself was gaining an education too. I was called on to make choices, and to work hard in the classrooms at Pike while dedicating equal commitment to the schoolwork I was doing for my graduate degree. It was an exercise in time management, in communication, and in balance - what better way to prepare myself for a career in education than to have the gift of a year where I could focus on those things with intention and with reflection?
As you may be able to tell from what I have shared with you, I would not trade my experience at Pike for anything. While I am certainly enjoying my time in the sun teaching the children of some of Hollywood's shining stars, I am overwhelmed when I think of how grateful I am to the people of the Pike community. I draw on what I learned from my directing teachers Penny and Jenn each and every day. I try to make time to reflect on my teaching, as I know Margaret would encourage me to do. I would be more than happy to speak to anyone who is considering the Pike/Lesley collaborative program - it was such a formative experience for me!
Marybeth Heyd
First Grade Teacher
Center for Early Education
West Hollywood, CA
September 2004-present
From the outset I was interested in early childhood education and the head of the program was able to place me in a kindergarten classroom for the first semester and a first grade classroom for the second semester allowing me to gain valuable experience working and learning in the grades I wanted to ultimately teach. As an intern I was able to experience everything from setting up a classroom for the fall, to parent-teacher conferences, daily successes and struggles with teaching lesson and closing the classroom for the year. The lower school teachers at Pike live by the team-approach to planning, so I was able to observe and collaborate with six teachers as a results of this approach. It was at Pike that I learned the true value of collaboration with colleagues.
I wholeheartedly believe that my hands-on experiences with lesson planning and teaching over the course of an entire academic year helped me to get my current job as a first grade teacher. My cooperating teachers knew me very well and were able to guide me in my teaching decisions and provide honest recommendations. When the time came to start applying to teaching positions this was invaluable."
Stephanie Dennington
Grade 1 Teacher
Marion E. Zeh Elementary School
Northborough, MA
"My experience with The Pike School/Lesley University School-based Internship/M.Ed. Program is beyond words. After teaching for 3 years in the Sudbury Public Schools as a fourth grade teacher, I attended an International Job Fair, hoping to teach overseas. Because of my references and professional development at The Pike School, I was a strong candidate for many elementary teaching positions throughout the world. I am now teaching at the International School of Beijing as a third grade teacher, and I can be certain that without my background at Lesley and Pike, I would not have the confidence, knowledge, or capability to teach at an International institution.
Not only do the graduate classes pertain to the ongoing development of a new teacher, but the hands-on experience and the real-life teaching that takes place at Pike is an enormous benefit to such a program. Being able to start and finish an entire year of teaching while learning from true professionals with years of experience allows for a strong background in the field of education from the start. The teachers at Pike are people that I will have a lifelong relationship with simply because they helped me to get to where I am today. I continue to speak highly of the experience I had with Pike and urge anyone who is interested to contact me with questions."
Kimberly Walton
3rd Grade Teacher
International School of Beijing
Three years
My time at Pike through the collaborative program with Lesley was a unique, challenging, and unbelievably enriching experience. I believe that the combination of the comprehensive, fast-tracked masters program at Lesley and the hands-on, cohort-based teaching internship at Pike was what gave me the edge during my search for employment at an independent school in Southern California. While Lesley's name certainly carried some weight, as far as I was from Massachusetts, it was the fact that I had student-taught at an independent school like Pike that enabled me to present myself for as a strong candidate for employment at schools on the west coast, where I had no previous work experience in education.
Beyond simply getting in the door at a well-regarded school like CEE, where I currently teach first grade, my experience working with the faculty at Pike in conjunction with professors and advisors at Lesley prepared me for a truly collaborative approach to teaching. CEE uses a team-teaching philosophy, and after working with two different teams during my internship, I felt confident that I would not only be able to continue working literally side by side with another teacher, but that in fact this is how I would prefer to teach. Particularly as a new teacher, the notion of continuing to learn and receive guidance from a veteran teacher (in my case, my teaching partner has been teaching at CEE for 25 years) while still being on equal footing with her in terms of responsibility and accountability, was too good to pass up. I am now in my third year with the same partner, and I couldn't imagine teaching any other way. My time at Pike with the Kindergarten and 5th grade teams, and with my cohort of other Lesley grad students, showed me the benefits of collaborating with others in order to create lessons, design curriculum, and make day-to-day decisions that best serve students.
I am fortunate to have experienced the very holistic and practical approach to education subscribed to by Margaret and those with whom she makes this program possible at Lesley and at Pike. While my placement at Pike may have been merely an internship that was required in order for me to receive my masters degree in the timely fashion I was hoping for (having already spent a year teaching in my own classroom in a public school in Massachusetts), my experience there was certainly more than a mere technicality that I fulfilled. From the moment I arrived there, I instantly felt like part of the Pike community, and was never made to feel like a temporary employee. I was allowed to engage, to participate, to truly be part of the educational process of so many children - as I myself was gaining an education too. I was called on to make choices, and to work hard in the classrooms at Pike while dedicating equal commitment to the schoolwork I was doing for my graduate degree. It was an exercise in time management, in communication, and in balance - what better way to prepare myself for a career in education than to have the gift of a year where I could focus on those things with intention and with reflection?
As you may be able to tell from what I have shared with you, I would not trade my experience at Pike for anything. While I am certainly enjoying my time in the sun teaching the children of some of Hollywood's shining stars, I am overwhelmed when I think of how grateful I am to the people of the Pike community. I draw on what I learned from my directing teachers Penny and Jenn each and every day. I try to make time to reflect on my teaching, as I know Margaret would encourage me to do. I would be more than happy to speak to anyone who is considering the Pike/Lesley collaborative program - it was such a formative experience for me!
Marybeth Heyd
First Grade Teacher
Center for Early Education
West Hollywood, CA
September 2004-present
