Feature Summer 2012 Park Tudor School continued from page 27
Mentoring future teachers: Erica Bellamy Christie ’99 Erica Bellamy Christie ’99 says she got a great education at Park Tudor, but the lesson she learned best was about great teaching. “The model of teaching I saw at Park Tudor was very impacting,” Christie says. “Teaching—the work, the profession—was taken very seriously. That doesn’t happen in a lot of places. I saw these thoughtful, intelligent people Erica Bellamy Christie ’99 and they made teaching their life’s work. It redefined what I though of teaching because I admired them so much.” After graduating summa cum laude in sociology from Bowdoin College in Maine, Christie returned to Indiana and earned a master’s degree in education from Indiana University and taught in Perry Township in Indianapolis. She returned to IU to earn a Ph.D. and teach in the IU School of Education, instructing education majors how to become effective social-studies teachers and supervising student teachers. Married to Josh Christie ’99 and raising their daughter, Alice, Christie is finishing her thesis in Indianapolis and has launched Curriculum That Matters LLC to develop high-impact curriculum materials for clients such as Y-Press Youth News Network, The Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, and the City of Indianapolis. Helping future teachers find what she calls their “teaching identity” is a rewarding experience because nearly all the college students she encounters are so motivated to be the best teachers they can be, Christie says. “Every teacher had a mentor,” she says. “I think about that when I teach and try to teach like that.”
“Our goal is to ensure that every child in Indiana has the opportunity for an excellent education. Is that going to happen tomorrow? No. But we have made seats available for students to get an excellent education.” Most recently, Hawkins spearheaded The Mind Trust’s “Grow What Works” campaign, an $18 million fundraising initiative to invest in the most promising education reforms. Grow What Works will provide additional support for programs that have had proven success in Indianapolis, including Teach for America, The New Teacher Project, College Summit and Stand for Children, and two that have been developed through Mind Trust’s Educational Entrepreneur Fellowship program, Teach Plus and Summer Advantage. The campaign will also support The Mind Trust’s Education Entrepreneur Fellowships and Charter School Incubator initiatives. Hawkins joined The Mind Trust in 2011 after leaving Exact Target, where she was a marketing executive. Prior to that, she’d had a successful stint at The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and she found that while she enjoyed the business world, she really missed working for a cause in the not-for-profit sector. At a career crossroads, Hawkins reflected on her life experiences and realized what a difference her education had made. “Aside from my amazing parents, my education is really what provided me the opportunities I have,” she says. Married in June 2012 to Sam Hawkins ’94, Hawkins has stepped back slightly from her role at The Mind Trust to work a part-time schedule more conducive to helping raise their young sons Tucker ’24 and Aden ’25, both students at Park Tudor. Hawkins recalls an anecdote told by one of her most influential teachers at Park Tudor, Upper School social-studies teacher Margo McAlear, who stopped on her way to school one day to help someone whose car had broken down. How often, she asked the class, do we just drive by instead of stopping to help? “When you think about true change, it happens when someone steps out on a limb,” Hawkins says. “When I think about being part of this movement to improve education, hopefully that is what I am trying to do.”
Sarah Smith Hawkins ’97: Education reform tops work Sarah Smith Hawkins ’97 isn’t in the classroom, but she’s working to make a difference in the lives of thousands of children through The Mind Trust, an Indianapolis-based education reform organization. The Mind Trust has both sparked controversy and garnered praise for its groundbreaking reform efforts targeting Indianapolis Public Schools, a school system plagued with low test scores and graduation rates. “We have a lot of momentum behind our work and a lot of community support,” Hawkins says. “I think the biggest impact of The Mind Trust has been in making people believe that true change is possible. If you look at other cities that have had pretty radical changes in public education—New York, Chicago, New Orleans—those cities are significantly larger. There are 30,000 kids in IPS, and our public schools are a huge problem, but it is totally feasible for us to reach 30,000 kids.
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Sarah Smith Hawkins ’97, Sam Hawkins ’94 and sons Tucker ’24 and Aden ’25.