When Mr. Ortiz sits down in front of his computer, his effusive personality fills the Zoom screen. The background is dark. He’s meeting me at 7 p.m., just coming home from work after a day that started, like every other weekday, at 4 or 5. That’s a.m. He leans toward the screen, his bright eyes and white shirt contrasting with his navy tie. “OK, I’m ready to start!” He smiles, glancing to the left at what must be his prepared notes.
When Mr. Ortiz sits down in front of his computer, his effusive personality fills the Zoom screen. The background is dark. He’s meeting me at 7 p.m., just coming home from work after a day that started, like every other weekday, at 4 or 5. That’s a.m. He leans toward the screen, his bright eyes and white shirt contrasting with his navy tie. “OK, I’m ready to start!” He smiles, glancing to the left at what must be his prepared notes.
I call him “Michael,” but as we talk, it feels a bit out of place. After all, I knew him as my Guttman student, from the second day of Summer Bridge in 2018, and later, in my Composition class. To his fifth graders, he’s simply “Mr. Ortiz.” So, let’s see, I graduated from Guttman in 2020, and I wanted to go into Communications. Communications or Sociology.
You know, you always have to have a Plan A and a Plan B.” I easily pictured him saying that to his high school seniors.“I went with Plan B and studied Sociology at Hunter. I was starting my last semester and said on my LinkedIn profile that I was looking for a job. From that, I was hired as a Staff Support Teacher at the Math, Engineering, and Science Academy (MESA) in Brooklyn. It was during COVID. They needed someone immediately. So I taught while I finished my degree,” he explains.
For Michael, trying to keep young people not much younger than himself in school reminded him of the teachers and mentors who taught him growing up in Mott Haven, the Bronx. He saw himself working hard to do the same for his students in Bushwick, and under the unimaginable weight of the pandemic. At the end of the school year, he was recruited to teach with the Democracy Prep Network in Harlem. First, they placed him in early elementary, then the assistant principal called him in for an opening in the fifth grade.
He finds the rigor of the charter school’s expectations of its teachers and scholars exhilarating. “When they hired me, they told me that if I accepted their offer, it would be ‘life-changing.’ I’m always one to take a risk. I mean, if educators aren’t taking a risk, why do it? What difference does it make? Michael exudes. “I really like their philosophy. It fits with mine: curriculum doesn’t determine students’ future. Their sense of meaning does, their sense of purpose.”
He changes the subject to his three- and five-year plans. “I see myself studying child development and going into school leadership. I want to get a foundation by teaching at different grade levels to understand the different levels we’re building on.”
He takes a breath and looks above the camera. “As for right now, I’m learning to teach like a sociologist. That means I have to understand where each of my scholars is coming from; their backgrounds, their culture, and their experiences. And I can only do that from the perspective of my own background, culture, and experiences. It’s about us relating to one another from those perspectives and forming relationships with one another. That’s where learning begins.”
Michael’s on to something. With only 9.3% percent of all public school teachers being Hispanic while 79% are white, most Black and Latino students will go from K to 12 without ever having a single same-race teacher who may reflect their experience, reports the Education Trust. In fact, for the U.S. teaching workforce to mirror the U.S. student population, a Duke University study estimates we’ll need to add 1 million new teachers of color to our nation’s schools by 2030. Considering the pandemic, the education profession took a real hit, with roughly 36,000 K-12 teaching positions vacant, notes an Annenberg Institute working paper.
Noticing the clock inching toward 8 p.m. when Michael shuts off his phone to have some “downtime,” I tell him that Guttman is starting a Teacher Education track in the Liberal Arts major beginning in Fall 2023. As if it were possible, his face lights up even more. “That’s great! It works with my five-year plan. I hope to be a school principal during the day and teach college students at night who want to be teachers! Look, If I can do anything to give back to Guttman, I will. I got so much from City Seminar, from my Student Success Advocate and from UMOC (United Men of Color). Guttman set me up for success,” he concludes.
I believe him.
–Dr. Claire King is an inaugural Guttman faculty member and Special Projects Advisor to the President.
