Educators Rising is both a club and a national honor society at Marriotts Ridge, whose mission is to support the MRHS community and build future educators. Their main goal is to help aspiring teachers learn and grow.
The club’s president is senior Sarah Hill, who joined the club two years ago after learning about it from the Teacher Academy of Maryland (TAM). She was particularly interested because she didn’t expect for there to be a club for future teachers at a high school level. Since joining the club, she’s taken on a leadership role, which allows her to have more influence on the club’s focus.
“At club meetings, our main objective is to assist those competing in competitions, create and run drives related to education and inspire and support current and future educators,” Hill mentioned.
While it is only her first year at MRHS, the club’s advisor, Mrs. Bucolo is very passionate about running the club and providing mentorship to potential future educators through various club meetings and activities.
“I love being a teacher. I think that’s part of the future, so anything I can do to support that trail to education, I’ll do it,” explained Bucolo.
Her focus this year has been on building relationships within the school community, hoping to increase club membership, which has proved to be a struggle for Educators Rising because of the decrease in students who plan to pursue careers in education. Even with this setback, Mrs. Bucolo has taken this challenge in stride, looking towards next year and thinking about the club’s future and how to learn from this year’s situation.
“One of the things that I have started [to do] is talk about different types of leadership in the club, and I think that [having] more leadership opportunities, that’s what gets people really involved,” exclaimed Bucolo.
Despite being few in number, Educators Rising is still trying out new ways to get people to join in and participate by spreading their ideas of leadership and what it means to be a teacher through various methods of advertising.
“The easiest way we acquire members is via our TAM program classes, but we also like to gain members by word of mouth. Additionally, we have an Instagram that we post to, in order to spread the news of Educators Rising to new students,” stated Hill.
The nation’s current teacher shortage hasn’t made acquiring new members easy for the club as teaching has become a profession that receives more praise than criticism.
“Unfortunately, one of the main challenges with running the club is that many [people] see how the teachers in their community are struggling, and how many young teachers are quitting at alarming rates, and can get turned off to the thought of being an educator. Additionally, as a society we look down on educators, so it’s difficult to convince students to explore education as a career option,” Hill explained.
Even through these challenges, Mrs. Bucolo as well as her club members have found ways to move past the difficulties to continue building up young aspiring leaders who hope to transfer their skills to the classroom and beyond.
“I think that everyone has a real positive attitude. The ability to rebound [from difficult situations] is an important aspect of being an educator too,” recalled Bucolo.
Next year, Bucolo also hopes to bring in more educational components that will help explain more about teaching as a profession and potentially even invite some guest speakers. This club is a great opportunity for anyone considering a career path in education. It’s a great way to meet people with similar interests and find both information and support in a potential career field. Educators Rising is looking forward to next year and the improvements they plan to make to become a more well-known organization within MRHS.