Get to know Taylor Braswell | 2nd Year Penn Fellow

Here are 3 questions to get to know her better:

1 . What inspired you to pursue a Master’s in Education, and how do you hope it will shape your future career goals? 

I have always wanted to be a teacher. Growing up, my relationships with my teachers were incredibly formative and meaningful. I knew early on that I wanted to be for others what my teachers were for me. My college didn’t have an education major, but I was able to take several education courses in the psychology department. One of my favorite professors, Dr. Engel, spoke often about the critical role that the teaching profession plays in the world. She dispelled the popular myth that teaching is “a calling” and that the skills needed to teach were innate in some people (i.e., women). Dr. Engel saw it as a discipline, a science, and an art. She regarded the profession so highly that she felt teachers should be held to the same standards as doctors and lawyers and should be encouraged to pursue a degree specific to their occupation. She thought that to assume teaching was something that just anyone could do was to diminish the value and seriousness of schooling overall. Dr. Engel was a very persuasive person, and It was hard for me to disagree with her. So once I decided that I wanted to teach, I felt it was also imperative that I get a degree in Education. People pursue an M.Ed for all sorts of reasons: to prepare them for jobs in consulting, school leadership, curriculum development or policymaking. I’m doing it because, more than anything, I want to be a good teacher. 

2. Reflecting on your time as a Penn Fellow, what has been the most transformative experience in your journey, and how has it shaped your approach to teaching and leadership in education?

By far, the most transformative experience has been spending 90 minutes daily with ten teenagers. There is nothing you can learn or do in a teaching program that is more important, more educational or more intimidating than being in the classroom with your students. I believe that in teaching, theories can only take you so far. You can read as much theory, study as many models, and analyze as many frameworks as you want. But if you don’t have an actual student in mind while you’re doing that work, you have to ask yourself, “Who am I actually doing this for? Myself? An institution?”  It’s not about how I teach but how students learn and being responsive to that. 

3. As a Penn Fellow, what unique opportunities have you had to apply your coursework and training in real-world educational settings? How does it impact your role in educating girls to become the future leaders of tomorrow?

Because of the work I do at Penn, I’m constantly thinking about how I can use my teaching practice to make the world even a little more loving, kind and just. We do a lot of work about the power of the teaching profession to either help reproduce the same flawed world over and over again or to help craft a new one. And I don’t think I’d internalized the real impact of my job until this summer when I was figuring out how to teach in an election year.