Dr. Amanda Palmer, EdD in Education | Founder/CEO of Palmer Educational Services; DEIB Coordinator, English Teacher, Chair of Middle School Teaching & Learning, Instructional Coach, Assistant Director of Summer School at The Lab School of Washington

In this episode, we discuss what led Amanda to pursue a doctorate in education at Johns Hopkins, her experience in the EdD program and its impact on her belief in herself to affect real systemic change, and her take on the importance of self-reflection and her creative advice for new teachers entering the classroom.

Hosted by Brooklyn Arroyo

To learn more about Amanda's story, visit her page on the PHutures #100AlumniVoices Project website.

Transcript

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Brooklyn Arroyo

Hello I'm co-host Brooklyn Arroyo and this is 100 Alumni Voices podcast, stories that inspire, where we explore the personal and professional journeys of a diverse group of 100 doctoral alumni from Johns Hopkins University. Today we're joined by Amanda Palmer, EdD in Education, currently working as a DEIB coordinator, English teacher, teacher centered instructional coach and summer school coordinator, as well as an educational consultant through Palmer Educational Services LLC. So, with all those plethora of experiences, I mean props to you, but I I really want to step back and look at what your journey was leading up to getting your EdD studying education. Was that a linear process for you and and what does that look like for you?

Amanda Palmer

Right. Yes, I do wear a lot of hats. So, as you can imagine, it was not exclusively linear. I am definitely though one of those very cheesy stories of somebody who you know as a child, I knew that I wanted to be a teacher, and there's just this this pull within me who said, you know, this teaching is your jam. You know, so I was definitely the kind of kid who played school a lot growing up, right. So even from from all the way very, very young age. I was also sort of pinned as the student anytime a new kid came to my school, right, or we had a visitor, I was the one to sort of help the helper right to to kind of help navigate new spaces. And then all through upper elementary, middle school, high school, certainly in college, I found myself gravitating towards clubs or community service opportunities or extracurriculars that involved either working with children or some sort of educational, and they were in some sort of educational space, right, some educational capacities. So, I do feel very fortunate that that part of the pathway you've asked if it was linear, right? I kind of feel like it may be a six-lane highway that was there, but like it was there, right? And then I started also the special education portion. So special education is at the the crux of of so much of what I do, I would say it's sort of this Venn diagram of the the DEIB work that you mentioned and that ultimately my dissertation work surrounded and work with the special education population. And that started, I mean, I was a lifeguard, right, a lifeguard for very, very young kids who had special needs. And it was the best and that sort of solidified that that was going to be the path in some way. I went to Muhlenberg College in Allentown, PA, and had the most incredible educational experience with the most talented faculty in the world, other than Hopkins, of course. And that the I had very early experiences in a variety of classrooms, urban, suburban, rural, young elementary up through upper elementary at the time. Loved it. Got a teaching job again, was fortunate to get a teaching job right after college and jumped into the classroom. I started at the middle school and high school level, working with students with autism in a in a large public-school setting, both in inclusion classrooms and in self-contained spaces is the language that the district used at the time. Started my masters. Loved it. Couldn't get enough of it. So, at that point it sort of solidified, you know, student debt be damned, this was going to be the the path for me and ended up moving to DC so that I could have more of an urban experience. I missed the urban educational landscape that I had experienced in college through Allentown Public Schools and I was not when I was teaching right after college, I was up in New Jersey and it was a more suburban spaced. Really missed it. Moved to DC, finished my masters down here at American University and tried really hard to ignore the pull in me to go back to school. I tried really hard to ignore and and I was again very, very fortunate. I kept having that need to sort of look for additional experiences, additional opportunities in the Community that involved supporting and helping Community members. I found I was very drawn to supporting historically marginalized populations. Started tutoring, so I was teaching and tutoring and felt this, you know what what I later found to be the problem of practice right through through my dissertation work. But I I kept seeing systemic issues and was was sort of helping them, mitigating them, supporting other teachers and it felt a little bit like I was putting out fires as they came up, right. And I I at some point I just succumbed to the fact that in order to really make some sort of systemic change or at least to have a systemic understanding of the problems I was seeing I really needed to to learn from the leaders and Hopkins is the place. One thing that that really drew me to lock lock in what I wanted to be my continuing education to I found hope the Hopkins program was really the fact that not only could I stay in the classroom teaching, you know, with my sort of feet in the trenches while I was continuing my education, but in fact, that was supported, right? That was the the whole program was designed for actively, you know, people who are actively still practicing and and and that for me was was instrumental in the amount of learning I was able to do through the program. Being having that sandwich of I'm learning I'm I'm getting history. I'm getting all these lenses. I'm having this depth of understanding and in the morning, I’m going to go look at my classroom, look at my students, look at the teachers that I'm supporting and and put it into practice. Right. So that was just yeah. So, you know, sort of linear, but, you know, with some divots into lifeguarding and special patient and no, I can't have any more student debt. Ok fine I do need it.

Brooklyn Arroyo

Sometimes that pull that, that constant pursuit of knowledge that constantly curious that just is overwhelming. And I think that it's important that you bring up the the significance of being in a program that allowed you to actively still be a part of teaching or education in any capacity, and I think for for education specifically, it is really important because there's a lot of like talking about how you do it, talking about how you learn, and talking about how it's implemented and it's drastically different than the actual processes that that do take place or the classroom settings. And so, I think that is important and I'd love to hear a little bit more about sort of the the niche experiences that you had within either your masters or your EdD that really brought you into wanting to dive deeper into into the systemic issues or systemic things you wanted to learn more about within education.

Amanda Palmer

Yeah, I think the the sort of program design, the instructional design at the time when when I was in in classes was very influential for me. So, it was it was clearly not an accident, right? There a lot of a lot of people looking at it for a long time planning it out, mapping it out. And for me it worked, right? We started, you know, I'm gonna flub up the names of some of the courses off the top of my head, but you know, our contemporary approaches to education, the disciplinary approaches to education. Right. We're getting these sort of big picture lenses. And something that was really important was that we were not able to start jumping into that solution focus, right. We had to stay in the space of figure out the problem, ask questions, interrogate, look at it from every angle, see what other people have done, right, learn these major milestones in history. Like for the Coleman report stands out very much for me, right? So, learning about the the busing systems, right? And moments sort of moments in history where some of the challenges that we see now, especially those challenges that negatively and negatively affect historically marginalized populations, when those challenges have have been there, which arguably is always right, unfortunately, when history and society started to sort of mitigate those right and then when all of the white people, wou know which as as a white person I say this right, all the white people like, no, no, no. We must keep, you know, our power and privilege and manipulated things so that that, you know, there was still that, that dynamic. And I don't know those those pieces were really affirming, I guess, for lack of a better word, I'm not affirming doesn't feel right, but that's what's coming to mind right now that the problems that I, you know, I use the word problem in alignment with the, the with Hopkins's language of problem of practice, right, but that the inequities that I was seeing, the challenges that I was seeing, the recurring issues, the recurring barriers in place for students, the roadblocks for teachers who were trying to make a difference, right, all of these pieces that I felt like I kept seeing different iterations of I learned actually history backs that up right? Research backs that up and having that foundational groundwork through the course work at Hopkins ultimately then helped me, you know, narrow what I was seeing, find a really specific entry point, sort of do all of the things that the program was designed to do. One of the things that I found we were talking a second ago about how you know important is to stay rooted in the classroom, right. One of the things that I found, you know, much to much to my chagrin and much to the annoyance of my interns and the annoyance of my colleagues, was that I would start moving through the day or I would be presenting something to my to faculty, or I would be in a meeting with parents and I would start citing people, which is super pretentious and terrible and awful. And it was, I mean, and sometimes those citations were allowed, you know, which, you know back, nod back to the irritation of my colleagues, which eventually turned into a running joke. Right. But it but it was, you know, on a sort of more serious note it was indicative to me of how intentional the coursework is, right? How thoughtful the integration of course work across across classes was. How intentional the building and the the sort of scaffolding that they did with us, right to use the special education term. And how applicable it felt right. The personalization that we were able to bring to our readings, to our reflections on our readings, to our coursework just meant that the practice was better. My, my, my classroom practice was better. My guidance of other teachers was better. I feel like I took a real deviation there from your question. Hey, you know.

Brooklyn Arroyo

No, no. It's your podcast today. No, but I think that you bring up a really important point that we've seen throughout history and and I think that we really see still today unfortunately. But there's a this notion, I think that education sort of exists in a vacuum and separate from society, when in reality it mirrors society and there's a lot of parallels between what's existed within our culture, but also in laws and systems that still are happening in education. So, I think that that's really important and there's a lot of history that I think people should know and more widely spread now about how education has worked in America especially. So, all very well points were made in the conversation.

Amanda Palmer

Well, it's great too, I mean, I would be remiss not to shout out the faculty, though, right? I mean, the faculty is truly outstanding and in the same way that as as an educator, I strive to be there, be present, be responsive to my students and to my, you know, my interns and the teachers that I'm coaching, it was, I mean, there's there's actually not an adjective. I was gonna say the words not coming to me. I don't think it maybe exists to describe the level of support and the level of attention and really individualized attention. Right. And the level of commitment that faculty seems to have to us as students especially, you know, our dissertation committee, right? Especially as we got into our specialization courses. So, I was in urban education specialization and and the it really felt like a shared thought partnership and truly trying to mitigate or understand or ideally help get to some sort of resolution with our problems of practice. Right? And I think for me that's what moved. So, we we talked a minute ago, about like or a while ago because I'm a babbler, right about this sort of sense of lifelong learning and like a lifelong commitment to the world of education, and I think for me that lifelong curiosity and commitment to learning would have existed separate from Johns Hopkins University on this program right. And I think that the difference is that being a part of this program took a curiosity into a space of I can make change. I can be effective and really influence the lives of people, not, not just sit around in a faculty lounge and, you know, talk about how the world is difficult and teachers aren't paid enough. All of those things are true, right? Talk about how there are persistent inequities in education, and our students of color are disproportionately disciplined. Like, yes, these things are all deeply true, deeply true, deeply impactful on people's careers, educate like students’ educational careers, right, ultimately what they want to do after school. Deeply impactful. And I feel like with Hopkins, it moved it from this curiosity and drive and frustration at society, right. And maybe it's like a desire to pursue sort of social justice avenues, right? And it added in data, expertise, historical route and this this feeling of if I really commit to this, if I really move forward in a formal way with my curiosity and my drive, I could be impactful. I could be one of the people that you know really support bridging, you know, I hate the phrase opportunity gap. I hate all those phrases, right? It really is right. We could be some of we could be a cohort of people that makes a real actual difference instead of just sort of sitting around talking about wanting to do it, you know, and I think that for me was one of the biggest shifts that I felt, I think moving through the program.

Brooklyn Arroyo

Definitely, there's a lot of that right now in the world in America. Whatever it is, but there is just there is a notion that it's easier and it is easier to talk about it than do about it when it comes to these hard topics, and really there's they're just really multifaceted issues. So, it takes a lot of The Dirty work getting down into the trenches, you know, actually studying it. Looking at the statistics, looking at yourselves within those statistics amongst all of this, being able to address that with yourself and and all of that. And so, I. So, you brought up how you had that support system at Hopkins and really a great experience. And earlier in the podcast, you brought up how you relatively always knew that as many people do I feel like that you always wanted to be in education. That was something that sort of called to you. And and so I want to know what was your elementary or even middle or high school experience with education? Was this all around positive for you or was it more on the flip side where you struggled a little bit more and that's why you wanted to go into education to to impact the system? What did that look like for you?

Amanda Palmer

That's a really good question. I went most of my educational career. I went to predominantly again as I identify as a white woman and I went to predominantly white institutions. I they were pretty mixed socioeconomically, and most of the educational experience that so like the the demographics of my peers were mixed socioeconomically and the experience of all of my schools was really built for people who, with socioeconomic privilege, right, people who had financial privilege and that was not necessarily the people that were there. I you know, as as a white woman in the DEIB space, I like to say DEIBJ someday. I think we're we're still pretty far away from from that justice piece. But someday. I love a good rhyme right DEIBJ someday. But I think as as a as a white woman who's in that space, I've done, you just brought up self-reflection, right? We learned in the program, I've learned since writing my dissertation there is all the data in all of the lands that supports right that that, that self-reflective peice is has to be the precursor to any impactful work. So recently I I have done the last few years have been doing a lot of that. And I was fortunate that while my education, my formal educational elementary school, middle school, high school was that demo. Right. It was predominantly white, very socioeconomically diverse. My community that I was a part of, so, my my religious community is like I did a lot of community service, a lot of the community service my peers in those spaces, different sort of outside of school things. They were diverse and in in a wide variety of ways, right. So, if you look at the sort of big 8 identifiers. I had a lot of diversity and all of those identifiers in my life outside of school. I do think that that influenced the way I saw school. So, I did not academically struggle very much as a special educator. Now I I really see the value in that so it it opened up a lot of space for me at the time and in very formative years of my life to be able to take in what was going on around me. And I think having that juxtaposition between a pretty homogeneous for the most part homogeneous and generally positive educational experience, but recognizing some of some of the limitations, some of the more narrowed experiences that that were in those spaces helped me want to do something different. I'm also just a big creative nerd like that really gets my, you know, like that, that, that part of education is just really driving for me. So, getting to, you know, watch a student whether they're in kindergarten or they're in an an adult learner watch a student struggle to wrap their brain around a concept and try to come up with some very bizarre way to help them remember it. That's that's fulfilling for me that just feels fulfilling. Those are those little sort of micro moments up to the big, you know, dissertation research, statistical significance, you know. You know, they they both are impactful to me and I think I was able to be blessed growing up with a lot of brilliant educators, all of whom I thanked by name in my dissertation because it is so meaningful to me. Right. And I I think all those sort of pieces came together to to double down on the fact that this is what I'm supposed do.

Brooklyn Arroyo

Yeah, the the impact of a positive experience with a mentor, a teacher that can be life changing and it truly does have a major impact on a student's life or on a person's life, but unfortunately that also means negative effect on people for the rest of their lives. That's why this work is so important. So, I would love to know what sort of advice you would have for people who are entering education or just leaving the world of academia and are starting to step into education education into the classroom or whatever that may look like for them and what advice you would have.

Amanda Palmer

That's a big question especially. I would start with and this is going to sound silly, but buy some colored pens. Better yet, have your school buy you some colored pens. I I think that it it's it is a monster of a job on the day-to-day and then at the macro level, right? It is also, it can feel very overwhelming. What is currently currently feels and this is just me today so you know, I recognize that this is a podcast and it's going to exist forever. But for me today, what I'm hearing from a lot of teachers and what I'm feeling myself from the eye perspective is that it can feel almost patronizing for people to say, well, what's your why? Well, you're in it for the kids, right? And I I feel like, yeah, you know. No, no kidding. I'm trying to keep my language PG. But no, no kidding. We're in it for the kids, right? And in order for us to be fully present, we now know maybe it's post COVID. Maybe it's new generations coming into the field. We now know what can really leave a teacher feeling defeated or fulfilled, and that to your point, that can impact every single student’s experience. So, I say buy some color pens kind of as a joke, right? But they can keep you organized, right? They can be that space when you are feeling like nobody is listening, you can just scribble all over something, right? And they're a space that can, like, bring, bring reminds you of that why. Right again, I feel like that's incredibly patronizing. So, to people entering the their educational space right now, I would not really go down that road, but I do feel like I for me, I think of colored pens as in those moments when I'm feeling very frustrated in a class and I write a kid a note, right, and I say, like cool haircut. Don't want to blow. You know, I teach middle school right now, right? So, don't wanna blow you up in front of your friends. But I notice your haircut and I'm kind of liking it. Slip them a note right and then they write back or vice versa, right? If I have so many times with my students I've seen, especially in middle school, right? They're coming in and they've had a day. Something's happened at recess. There's been some sort of drama, you know, it's middle school, right? So, having them come in and just slipping something like that, you know, giving them three pens and a index card saying yo, tell me what's up right now, having them write something down. Right. So, something as like you know all all these big big big feelings. Big, big, big frustrations. Big, big, big successes can happen in the classroom, and you can get very lost and very overwhelmed. And a pack of flare pens can help with some of those things.

Brooklyn Arroyo

Definitely, definitely. And I I think that there's some clarity that that I just want to say is I have two teacher parents. Both of my parents are in education. I will say that you know the colored pencils, colored pencils, pens and markers. You'll just find them everywhere randomly.

Amanda Palmer

Everywhere, right? Right. And it's not to say that that's what the job is, right? We're doing more than coloring, right. Yeah, but I do feel like because we are doing so much more than what people think we are doing, sometimes you have to find some way to center yourself. Especially when the bigger world, especially when maybe your administration or society right, is not listening to what teachers need, what teachers want, what teachers require to build successful spaces for individual students and their classroom Community.

Brooklyn Arroyo

Metaphorical how those colored pens can be organized in a classroom, bringing vibrance and color into a classroom. And it is the teachers who are bringing those in and buying them.

Amanda Palmer

Ain't that the truth? Ain't that the truth?

Brooklyn Arroyo

Our grand finale of each episode is the same question for all of you, and and that is what inspires you right now?

Amanda Palmer

I mean, on the heels of that conversation, what's inspiring me in some colored pens? Bigger picture I think, and this might, I'm sorry to take it to sort of a darker place, but what is inspiring me right now is all of the ugly that there is in the world. It is really easy to compartmentalize that and say I'll go for a walk. I will draw with some colored pens, right? I will and then insert sort of whatever the hot, you know, self-care thing is at that of that moment of that week. But what's really driving me is the fact that we are still having school shootings, what feels like every day, right? We are still having hate symbols drawn within classrooms in what feels like every day, right? There is a new tick tock challenge that is somehow destructive or harmful to communities and individuals again, what feels like every single day, right? These sort of big whammies that that start to really put a very heavy weight on top of all of the work, all of the positive work that is happening in classrooms across the country. And so, I think what inspires me right now, again, it's sort of a dark, twisted kind of inspiration, but what is inspiring me is that that's not, that's not sustainable. That's not OK. That is harmful. That is doubling down on all of the challenges that exist right now. And it's inspiring me to try to keep pushing to to make a change in whatever, yeah, whatever way possible. Yeah.

Brooklyn Arroyo

Yeah, and I. Maybe a dark note to to change it to, but I think that that they're important and they're definitely things that we need to talk about and address within education, within our society and within our world. So, thank you for coming onto the PHutures Podcast. 

Amanda Palmer

It’s cliché cliché AF. But, they're the future, right.

Brooklyn Arroyo

Definitely. So, thank you again. And I really enjoyed speaking with you today.

Amanda Palmer

Yeah, thanks Brooklyn. It was great.