Jerika Hill Roberts ’08 Always Being There Jerika Hill Roberts dresses up as Fancy Nancy, the dainty storybook girl with red hair who would say everything in
Although the Montgomery County native came to Goucher to earn a degree in psychology, she was swept up by the notion of teaching, especially after helping to run the SuperKids summer camp at Goucher for two years. “A lot of the students were from Fallstaff, and they gave
French if she could. She trades seats with unruly second graders
me this feeling of warmth,” she recalls. “I said, ‘I want to
just to show them how silly they really are. In her classroom
find out where that school is and teach there.’”
there are dance breaks and kiddie yoga performances. There
And so she has for the past five years. Currently a
are occasional tears and the teacher’s promise, oft repeated, that
second-grade teacher, Roberts has taught first grade three
she will always be there for them. “Once I’ve taught you,” she
times and fourth grade once as well. Her classes are rela-
reminds her students, “you’re mine forever!”
tively small—20 children. In the beginning of the year, she
And steadily, the children at Fallstaff Elementary/ Middle, a Baltimore school with a high number of at-risk
makes sure the children know that she is on their side, but she also sets down the rules.
students, are learning how to read and write and do math
“I keep it really honest and extremely real,” she says.
and show others how to use the interactive white board,
“I’ll tell my first graders, ‘OK, we’re having some issues here.
thanks to the young Goucher graduate who calls herself the
Let’s sit down and have a real talk.’ And they respect me to
school’s “techie.”
this day. Some of my babies who are now in fifth grade come to me and say, ‘I really appreciate the fact that you were always honest with me.’” They also have seen their teacher work to obtain cool
“A lot of my parents tell me that their kid has never wanted to come to school every day—or never said that they loved their teacher. When I gain the trust of children, I ultimately gain it with their parents.” — Jerika Hill Roberts ’08
stuff for them by making philanthropic connections. Thanks to Roberts’ persistence, her students now have a document camera and LCD projector, class copies of Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl and Judy Blume’s Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, and an ongoing service partnership with an employee group at Doubletree by Hilton in Pikesville, Md.