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Date: 11/4/2020
EASTHAMPTON – Despite the challenges schools have to face this school year because of the pandemic, Easthampton High School has something to celebrate.
Kelley Brown, a social studies and government teacher, was a finalist for the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) Teacher of the Year.
“The idea of being nominated as teacher of the year to me is about nominating the school and the community. That is really important to me. Nothing I do, do I ever do alone,” Brown said.
Brown was nominated by her older brother, Brian Brown, who teaches world history and psychology at the high school as well.
“I think the real magic in Kelley’s teaching is this: the kids want to be smart, they know how to do it with humility, and this is the key, they feel supported in taking academic risks. Kelley Brown’s students enter the world capable of pushing themselves intellectually and know that she is right there with them, quietly nodding and saying, ‘go ahead, you got this,’” said Brian.
Her brother said working with her professionally is inspiring and is like having a superhero in the workplace. He added that working with her personally is amazing.
“Kelley is my sister, and my room is right next door to hers, just like growing up. I get to say hi to her every morning. We’ve always been really close so it is a huge blessing to get to work with her,” Brian said.
Brian said that before he nominated her, he asked her permission. Kelley said she was excited, nervous, and proud when she found out.
“I was excited by the idea of it, it is also kind of humbling and nerve-racking to think about representing an entire state of teachers but I also have worked really hard at my career to support both students, but also teachers. I do a lot of professional development work for educators across the state,” Kelley said.
She is going on her 20th year of teaching in public schools. In the principal’s letter of support for the award, Principal William Evans said that Kelley’s performance both inside and outside the classroom is outstanding, the best he has seen in his 22 years in education.
“Kelley clearly has a passion for teaching others –not just for sharing what she knows – but truly teaching in the highest and most sophisticated sense of the word,” said Evans.
When she started out at Amherst College, she wanted to become a math teacher but after taking some humanities classes, she felt that the humanities, in particular history, were really important for young people to navigate and understand.
“I loved learning about it so I could continue to learn also I think issues of justice and issues of equity were very important to me,” Kelley said.
She continued to say that understanding history helps us understand the present and that is why she thought it was a subject that she could teach.
She began working with young people when she was in college. She worked at El Arco Iris, a youth arts program that was located in Holyoke.
“I really enjoyed what I did, I learned a lot from the people that worked there and they really encouraged me to think about teaching instead of working in the nonprofit field,” Kelley said.
After earning her Bachelor’s Degree she went and did a two-year program at UMass Amherst to become certified to teach. From there she was a tutor and then a teacher assistant at Holyoke Street School, which no longer exists, and went on to be a substitute teacher at what used to be Dean Technical Vocational High School in Holyoke. She was laid off and applied for a position at Easthampton High School.
Kelley shared that her most popular class has been We The People. A constitutional hearing course where the students engage in authentic conversation with adults they do not know about modern constitutional issues. The class has constitutional hearings with outside judges who give the class authentic assessments.
To go along with this course, there is a state competition within a national program that is put on by the Center of Civic Education. Kelley serves as the teacher and coach. For the last three years, Easthampton High School has won the MA state competition and went on to the national competition.
“I know it is impactful because you can only take the course once but I have students come back and help my class for the competition. I have students who graduated five or six years ago, even out of college, and they come back and they help,” said Kelley.
Alice Wanamaker, a senior at the high school who has taken four classes with Kelley and is now acting as Kelley’s teaching assistant in her We The People course said one word that describes Kelley is empathetic.
“Ms. Brown has made my life better in immeasurable ways. She’s introduced me to the topic that I am now basing my entire life goals and career on, she’s incredibly smart and good at explaining things but she is also deeply empathetic and really focuses on creating a classroom community that I really want to be in. being in her classes have been my favorite part of my day since U.S. 1 and it really has just got better since then,” said Wanamaker.
“Everything she does is about making her students smarter and happier,” Wannamaker added.
Kelley’s dedication to teaching does not stop in her classroom. In 2006 she began to work for the Department of Youth Services who have educators that work with young people who are in the custody of the state. Kelley has coordinated professional development at Easthampton High School since 2008. She also works with specific districts that reach out to her to train teachers around new curriculum frameworks.
Since 2016, she has taught online courses through Westfield State University for history educators. This fall she has co-taught Black Communities and Agency: Fighting Jim Crow and Institutionalized Racism with scholar Amilcar Shabazz. In previous semesters, she has taught A More Perfect Union: Teaching the U.S. Constitution in the 21st Century, The American War in Vietnam, Black Community, and Agency: Fighting the Color Line, and Equal Protection and the Constitution: Teaching Modern Struggles for Justice with Struggling Learners.
“I knew the fall was going to be crazy but with all of the issues of racial injustice and disruption that were happening in the spring, I said, this is a really important course that needs to be taught. It was morally important to me to actually offer it,” Kelley said.
Last year she and Laurie Risler, a professor, and teacher-in-residence at Westfield State University created a K-5 curriculum called History Mysteries. Since the two of them started this curriculum they have trained at least 250 teachers to use it.
After teaching for 20 years, Kelley’s favorite thing about teaching is the students. She told Reminder Publishing that she loves their willingness to consider new things, their willingness to work hard, to have fun, and enjoy what they are doing.
“I find that the young people I work with are incredibly inspirational. As hard as I work, they’ll meet me there. As excited as I get, they’ll meet me there,” said Kelley.
“There is really no me without them in terms of what I do,” Kelley added.