Teach for America educator profile: AP Lit teacher was inspired into education by pandemic

Isabella Zellerbach

Isabella Zellerbach is a 2021 Corps Member, teaching 12th grade AP Literature at IDEA Public Schools — Alamo College Prep.

What motivated you to apply to join Teach For America and choose to teach in the Rio Grande Valley?

I chose to teach in the Rio Grande Valley for a few different reasons. I have family in the area and spent a lot of time here when I was younger, so the familiarity was definitely a comfort. Aside from that, I wanted to be somewhere where I felt like I could make an impact; where I could relate to the students and use my culture and heritage in the classroom every day, which I could do in the Valley. In terms of motivation to apply to TFA, surprisingly enough, it was the pandemic. As teachers, including those in my family, were wondering how virtual teaching was going to work and logging off zoom exhausted, I was inspired. I saw how hard teachers were working, and how much of a need there was for even more teachers, and I felt like I wanted to do my part to combat that need and make school equitable and enjoyable for the students who were struggling so much during the pandemic.

What has been one of the most surprising things you’ve come to learn about education during your time as a classroom leader?

This is a two-fold answer for me. On the technical, educational side, what surprised me the most were the huge gaps that were created by the pandemic. I came into my AP Literature classroom expecting students to have knowledge on topics I remember having in my own AP Literature class. That simply didn’t happen. During the pandemic, students didn’t have WiFi to log on to classes, had spotty electricity, or simply didn’t log on for a variety of reasons: work, family, etc. When I came in as a teacher during their first year back to in-person learning, bridging those foundational gaps of knowledge while teaching college-level material forced me to get creative! On the social, emotional side of the classroom, what surprised me most was how much my students became a part of me! I knew that I would care and be interested in my students but no one tells you how much your students come to mean to you. Their successes became my successes, their grief became my own. I genuinely think of each of them as near and dear to me and root with everything in me for them to succeed. If you could change one thing for your students, what would it be?

I teach high school seniors, and I think what comes along with teaching that age is that I see how much responsibility they take on, or feel like they have to take on. If I could change anything, it would be to help them see that they can take a little while longer to grow up! They should enjoy being children and everything that comes along with that. Obviously it’s not always that simple. Some of my students work long hours after school to help support their families, others have parents who work long hours and so are in charge of their younger siblings, the list goes on. But showing them that they don’t have to be adults quite so soon is the ideal!

What lessons are you learning now that will help you continue to work toward educational equity in the future?

I think the lesson that I am learning and will continue to learn is that every student learns differently and you have to be prepared for that. What worked for the English Language Learners (ELLs) in my first class of the day may not work for the ELLs in the last class of the day, and I have to be prepared to think on my toes to ensure that all my students are getting access to the same information and are growing over the course of the year. Educational equity is about achieving fairness and opportunity for each individual student, and ensuring that I am ever-flexible in the ways that I am teaching and what I am teaching is crucial to that.

Can you share an anecdote or personal experience from your classroom or school?

I actually have a fun story that happened recently! So, my AP Literature classes are engaging in the Longer Fiction and Drama Unit, and I decided that a good introduction to plays would be Fences by August Wilson. I’m all about student agency and reading in the classroom, so we’re acting out every scene and pausing to discuss and analyze together. In my smallest class, which has only ten students, we’ve created a really fun and collaborative environment and they get really into it. On one of our reading days, I asked the class if anyone wanted to voice the main character, which I had been voicing up to that point. One of my students volunteered, albeit a little reluctantly after seeing how much he was going to have to read out loud. However, after he read a few lines of sitting in his seat and going through the motions, he came to life. He put on a character voice, put emphasis on his words, started acting out the motions that were indicated in the script (like whistling at his “wife,” putting an arm around the best friend, sticking his hands in his pockets, etc.) and truly put everything he had into making this character his own just because it was fun. This story is proof to me that we’re building a community in the classroom. I’m giving my students a space where they feel that it is safe to be goofy, to be silly, to be themselves for an hour and let learning be fun.

Teach for America (TFA) is the national nonprofit organization committed to the idea that one day, all children will attain an excellent education. To this end, the organization partners with communities to inspire the next generation of leaders to address unequal educational opportunities that fall along the lines of race and class. They begin this lifelong work with an initial twoyear commitment to teach in some of the nation’s most underserved schools. Here in the Rio Grande Valley, 61 corps members work in seven districts across the region.