Student Stories

When teacher Mindy Eichhorn went to India to teach abandoned women life skills, her own life changed.

An Affinity with India

Her interest in India started when she was at the University of Tennessee where she earned a B.S. in Special Education and an M.S. in Education. Read more...

SOE student mentors and elementary school pupils go to a Writing Party

Graduate and undergraduate students in Education 497I, Tutoring in Schools, recently joined pupils from Mark’s Meadow Elementary School’s After School day care program in a Writing Party. Read more and see photos ...

Tashi Zangmo's Dream

She was the first girl in her village area to go to school. And now, Zangmo’s (Ed.D. 2009) plan to improve educational opportunities for girls in Bhutan is a reality, launched with the help of the Queen. Read more...

2009-10 SOE Scholarship Recipients Named

The School of Education awarded scholarships to 14 graduate students this year. Read more...

Harmony in her classroom
Teacher shares her passion for music with elementary students

by Meaghan Casey for The Educator, Springfield

Amanda Woolley has had music on the mind since she was 7. Today, the 22-year-old award-winning teacher is spreading her passion for rhythm and harmony to students at the Dorman and Lincoln elementary schools.

“Music has always been a huge part of my life,” said Woolley, who grew up in Point Pleasant, N.J. “My parents wanted to provide me with the opportunity to take lessons, so I started with piano and then picked up flute in the elementary school band.”

Woolley went on to participate in various ensembles including marching band, symphony band, concert band, hoop band, flute choir, chamber choir and vocal jazz. She became the drum major of her high school marching band and of the University of Massachusetts Minuteman Marching Band, leading rehearsals and performances as field conductor and assisting with leadership activities.

“That was when I realized I loved teaching other people,” she said.

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Recruitment for college doesn’t have to wait until high school
By Alison DeRito, School of Education graduate student, Bridges to the Future elementary education pathway

It isn’t everyday that a student-teacher has the opportunity to share her love for her alma mater with nearly 70 fourth graders.

In the “Bridges to the Future” pathway at the School of Education at UMass Amherst, graduate students are placed in public schools in the Greenfield, Gill-Montague, and Orange, Massachusetts, school districts. I was placed in Sheffield Elementary School in Turners Falls, Mass., for my spring practicum. “Bridges” is unique in that it places a special emphasis on a community-service learning project. When my mentor teacher, fourth-grade teacher Michele Hazlett, told me that the fourth grades would be attending a performance at the Fine Arts Center at UMass Amherst, I was thrilled. When she asked if I’d like to tour the students around the campus for the whole day, I was honored and hopeful that I could turn this field trip into something special for my community-service learning project.

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Springfield middle school students perform for School of Education TEAMS students

Danielle Johnson walked to the front of the room and turned to face her classmates. With emotion, the seventh grade student rehearsed her part, describing how she was “surrounded” in daily life by people who smoked.

“I don’t feel like dying because of the stupidity of people around me,” she said.

Johnson was one of 48 students from Springfield, Mass., Duggan Middle School’s social studies and science classes who recently traveled to UMass Amherst’s School of Education to present to students in Dr. Robert Maloy’s Tutoring Enrichment Assistance Models for Schools (TEAMS) class a series of two-voice poems and public service announcements they had written.

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