Leading Future Educators

Dr. Leah Angell’s life, she will tell you, with a warm and level gratitude, has been characterized by learning. Angell was raised in Baltimore, Maryland, among people who placed primary emphasis on perpetual learning. In a home filled with books, knowledge was an energized communion. When Angell was growing up, one of her fondest memories, she says, was talking about books with her grandfather. “He would always greet me with his strong accent, a deep ‘Hello, darling,’ and then he would quickly ask, ‘Tell me, what are you reading?” she recalls, fondly imitating her grandfather’s Eastern European inflection. “If the first question is always about what you are reading, what does that teach you as a child about what’s important? I come from a family where teaching and learning have always been valued.” She always felt connected to her grandfather in those moments, as if the world were becoming a little more intimate. This, she thought, is what education is all about: A way of forming deeper ties with the world.

Her career as an educator, now entering a new stage as Collegiate’s Director of the Fellows’ Program, has been spent searching for and offering up those magical moments of connection. As an English teacher at Collegiate for the past seven years, she was tapped to shepherd and shape the new program in the spring of 2023. Now, in this new role, she is charged with fostering connections among early career professionals or career switchers and pairing them with Collegiate educators who will serve as mentors.

“The purpose of the Fellows’ Program is to provide aspiring educators with the mentorship, classroom experience and pedagogical background necessary to become a lead classroom teacher or independent school professional,” she says about the program, which will welcome the first cohort of four Fellows in the fall of the 2024-25 school year. “In keeping with three of the School’s core values — love of learning, excellence and community — the Fellows’ Program strives to foster and support each fellow’s lifelong journey in the field of education.”

At its core, Angell sees the program as a way to create the same kind of magic that she felt as a child. The scope of experience a school atmosphere provides can nourish an entire institution — the Fellows, the mentors, the students, the alumni, the families. Everyone benefits from new people, voices and perspectives, and part of the intention of the program is to bring a diverse range of new educators to the School. “If we are bringing in fresh new ideas, through hiring people with those ideas, or people who are young themselves, then our students benefit from having a new perspective in the classroom,” Angell says. “Or, if you’re a lead teacher and a mentor, to have those new voices around you can be challenging, energizing and exciting.”

As Collegiate teachers mentor these future educators, the School hopes to identify and retain strong candidates through the program. The Fellows’ Program will provide a paid, one-year internship opportunity, available to educators in each division and one administrative office. As part of the program, Fellows would observe classes, meet with department chairs, attend weekly workshops, participate in other professional development opportunities and eventually practice teaching. “For a teacher, nothing replaces being in the classroom,” Angell says. “So when you’re just beginning, having a mentor who is there to support and guide you really helps. And the other piece of great growth as a teacher is having strong professional development, and by working closely with a mentor, Fellows will learn a lot of tips and methods and techniques that will help them in the classroom.”

Across the country, teachers are leaving the classroom at higher rates, and the pool of candidates is not big enough to replace them. Emerging out of the School’s 2023 Strategic Plan, the Fellows’ Program is designed to grow that pool of new teachers, and, whether the Fellows are given the opportunity to stay at Collegiate or go elsewhere at the conclusion of their fellowship, they will be approaching their students with the quality of a Collegiate education. Because of the Fellows’ Program, education everywhere improves.

“I think we can all agree that all children deserve great teachers,” Angell says. “How could we not train teachers to be able to succeed wherever they are while also benefiting from all the Fellows have to offer? Our Fellows’ Program participates in what I would call a higher calling. We’re engaged in the business of helping people have a career in an incredibly valuable and enriching professional field, and these new teachers can say that their careers began at Collegiate.”

Angell, who speaks in a soft, helpful voice, like that of an attentive teacher guiding you through a challenging math problem, pulled out a legal pad of notes detailing the trajectory of the program. The challenge, she says, is thinking about the shape of the next two years, imagining 2025 and working backwards, the way an artist draws a face she’s never seen before but breathes life into her portrait when her work is finished. Like any strong teacher, she is organized, attentive, friendly, and she’s up for the challenge.

In fact, the challenges are what she loves most about education. The excitement of running up against an opposing idea or having a student ask a question she herself had never considered. Like unraveling a tangled ball of yarn to get to its core, learning is a perpetual process of unwinding your own thoughts, and Angell envisions the Fellows’ Program as a stimulant that allows for deeper thinking about education.

Over the summer, when Angell began researching other independent schools across the country that have implemented similar programs, she noticed that each school approached the program in a way that was unique to them. Each school leaned into what they did well as an institution. “One thing that this array of other schools’ programs showed me was that we have to create something at Collegiate that fits us,” Angell says. “None of these programs are cookie cutter. Our own Fellows’ Program will draw on our strengths as a school. It will speak to our own mission, values, resources, geographical location and demographics.”

Collegiate is one of the largest independent schools in the country, and Angell sees its size as a strength for the program. “We have a lot of adults with a lot of experience,” she explains. “So if we have a Fellow who wants to teach 4th Grade, there could be five or six different teaching methodologies or practices to which they’re exposed. They can see education manifested in a number of different ways.”

A large school comes with a variety of offerings. There are robotics programs, medical clubs, theater groups, art societies, student-driven environmental initiatives — all of it intricately woven together. When Angell began her career in education at the Peddie School, up in Hightstown, New Jersey, where she taught 9th Grade English and an elective course on the intersection of literature and world religion, she quickly realized that teachers do not operate in isolated classrooms. 

During her time teaching at Collegiate, Angell has worn many hats. She has held leadership roles on the Faculty Liaison Committee and as the Co-Head of the New Faculty Orientation Program; she also represents the Upper School on Collegiate’s Civil Dialogue Task Force and is a faculty sponsor of the student Service Council. As a member of the School’s Strategic Planning Team, Angell served on the team’s subcommittee for diversity, equity and inclusion, with a focus on racial, religious and socio-economic diversity. She has learned, over time, that understanding the jobs and duties of the staff working around her is of equal importance to what goes on in the classroom. She intends to have each cohort of Fellows finish the program with sound knowledge of the School as a unified, humming system.

“I plan to implement a broad education for Fellows about how this very large system of our school works,” she says. “Of course, we talk a lot about the classroom, and we talk about things like development and admission, but there’s also the nurses’ office, physical plant and groundskeeping, and the unsung heroes of our technology department who make everything work for us. Knowing how they work within a school makes you a better classroom teacher and a more compassionate educator and colleague.”

After two years at the Peddie School, Angell moved out to Los Angeles to work  at the Simon Wiesenthal Center Museum of Tolerance as a manager of the museum’s educational programs. Working with a nonprofit, her job encompassed all of the museum’s operations. She ran educational programs in the morning and also had to manage the museum’s electrical appliances at the end of the day. With new groups of students to teach daily, each day was an exciting surprise. Angell also learned the importance of incorporating the culture of a city into her education, and, with the Fellows’ Program, she plans to teach the Fellows about the complexities of Richmond in the hopes of having them bring that knowledge with them into the classrooms.

As a teacher, you’re constantly learning, so delving into Richmond history is just another part of that ongoing education. “It’s complicated to be Richmond,” she says. “We have an intricate and challenging and often controversial history. And, demographically, it is a city that has changed a lot in regard to the diversity of its population. All of that can feel heavy at times. And having teachers learn more about the city they work in can help them develop as teachers.

“We really want Fellows to have a deep understanding not only of how much one division or department in the School is connected to all of the other pieces that make Collegiate function well every day but also of how it is connected to the city in which it happens to be located.”

It all comes back to the students. The Fellows’ Program helps Collegiate as an institution continue to evolve and grow. It allows the School to constantly think about the next generation of teaching and learning, and it creates new ways for teachers to elevate the School’s many programs.

“Having a Fellows’ Program creates a number of opportunities for our existing teachers — both as leaders and mentors — to help develop their craft,” says Dean of Faculty Tung Trinh, who will help Angell build out the program. “We know that the most important thing we can harness here is having great teachers guide our students in their learning experience. Adding even more teachers with our Fellows’ Program will benefit our students. We have a chance to grow something really special here for everyone.”

Last winter, Angell, as she always does, attended the boys basketball game as the team took on St. Christopher’s. Jacobs Gym was crowded with families, friends and students. It was hot, sweaty; the temperature in the gym felt like it was well over 100 degrees. Cheers leaped toward the players on the court. She didn’t want to be anywhere else. “Feeling the energy and intensity in the gym, watching the kids play, some of whom I’ve known since they were in Kindergarten, I just remember thinking how at that moment I did not want to be anywhere else,” Angell says. The supercharged atmosphere, just like the exchange of ideas or a conversation about books, felt magical. By 2024, the Fellows will be experiencing the same thing, in the multitude of forms education manifests itself in at Collegiate. “I choose this place,” she says. “This school is special. I choose this atmosphere every day.”