Nearly 100 high school students from several communities in South Dakota gathered at the University of South Dakota Friday to take part in USD EdRising Day on Friday, Sept. 27. USD’s School of Education hosted the annual event for Education Rising students.
USD EdRising Day was a free event that includes faculty-led breakout sessions, a USD student panel of education majors, a campus tour and more.
Educators Rising is a program that supports communities to provide young people with hands-on teaching experience and help them cultivate the skills they need to be successful educators.
During their time at USD, the high schoolers who long to one day be teachers heard from one of the best in the field – a woman who is no stranger to the university campus.
USD alum Rebecka Peterson, the 2023 National Teacher of the Year, addressed the future educators as they met in the DakotaDome Club Room Friday morning, telling them of the crucial role they will soon play in young people’s lives.
Peterson received a master’s degree in mathematics while studying at the Vermillion campus.
“When I say I’ve been in education for 16 years, I count my years as a TA (teacher’s assistant) here, because that’s really where I started teaching,” she said. “I believe that USD really sparked my love for mathematics and also for teaching.”
Peterson asked the future educators to think about the teacher who helped bring out the best in them, who helped them see something in themselves that they didn’t know even existed.
“That teacher may not be in this room right now, but on behalf of that teacher, I want to say ‘thank you’ for considering becoming a part of this profession and continuing that teacher’s legacy,” she told her audience. “At some point, if you choose this profession, someone will ask you that very question and your name will come out of their mouth.
“Think about how you made them (your future students) feel, how you brought out the best in them, how you made a seat at the table for them,” Peterson said, “and you know, I can’t think of any other profession but this one where people don’t just think about us, they hold us in their hearts. One of the reasons I love being a teacher is I’m part of my teachers’ legacies.”
Peterson is an immigrant of Swedish-Iranian descent and lived in several countries around the world as her parents traveled as medical missionaries.
She remembers, as she began her undergraduate college education in Oklahoma, being asked “where are you from?”
“I also remember not being able to answer that question,” Peterson said as her family had lived in several places overseas before finally settling in Oklahoma. “When you can’t answer the question ‘where are you from,’ it starts to do something to you … you start to feel a little bit untethered.”
That experience helped her decide to seek a career in teaching.
“I don’t want anyone to feel like they are on the outside like I often did,” she said. “If you’ve ever been on the outside, which I think pretty much every human being has, you know that we watch the inside very closely. I decided I want to be a teacher because I don’t want anyone to feel like they’re on the outside.
“I want my students to know that they’re ‘in’ the moment they come,” Peterson said. “They’re in on their good days, their bad days – whether they earn the ‘A’ or they earn the ‘F’ – they are in and they are loved.”
Peterson has taught high school math classes ranging from intermediate algebra to Advanced Placement calculus for 11 years at Union High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Amid a difficult first year of high school teaching, she found the “One Good Thing” blog.
She credits daily posting there to help her recognize the positive experiences occurring in her classroom which inspired her to stay in the profession. She has since contributed 1,400 posts to the blog.
As Oklahoma Teacher of the Year, she has visited teachers across the state to highlight their important work through the Teachers of Oklahoma campaign.
“The more I started making a seat at the table for my students, the more I realized that I found my home,” Peterson said. “My home really is in the classroom, so the more I teach, the more I realize how much I love being a teacher.”
Before joining the faculty at Union High School, Peterson taught for three years at the collegiate level. She holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Oklahoma Wesleyan University and a master’s degree in mathematics from the University of South Dakota. She lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with her husband, Brett, and son, Jonas.
“I love being a teacher because I get to watch my students grow,” she said. “Yes, I get to watch them grow as mathematicians. I also get to watch them grow in the field and on the court; I get to watch them grow on the stage; I get to watch them grow as human beings.
“What a gift. What a gift to be in a profession that allows us to offer connection to others and also experience that connection ourselves,” Peterson said. “I love being a teacher because you don’t have students for just a year. You have students for a lifetime.”
She told her audience that she hopes they’ve been in classrooms where they’ve felt safe to be themselves, where they’ve been energized by the academic work and can’t wait to start a project “because you know the power of learning. You know that incredible feeling of problem solving. … you know that feeling as a student, but let me tell you this: that feeling to get to create that moment – there’s nothing like it.
“There’s nothing like it when you watch your students delve into the academic vocabulary or be able to really dig into your subject,” Peterson said, “and you realize that you are the learning architect of that moment. You created that space and that environment to help students flourish.”
Since Educators Rising’s August 2015 launch, more than 30,000 students and teachers across the country have joined the network. These students are engaged in high school-based, co-curricular teaching programs where they rigorously explore the profession.
Starting with middle and high school students, Educators Rising provides young people with opportunities to experience teaching, sustain their interest in the education profession and help them cultivate the skills they need to be successful educators.
In high school, Educators Rising supports curricular programs that allow students to explore the teaching profession and gain hands-on teaching experience. In college, Educators Rising supports campus-based student groups that promote the development of aspiring teachers.
“A beautiful part of teaching is we learn each other’s stories,” Peterson said, “and when we learn each other’s stories, we carry a piece of each other with us, don’t we? What a joy to get to carry these stories and be an advocate for our students.”