Former Teaching Fellow Uses Tools He Learned About at Eagle Rock
Tyler Holmberg has been away from the Eagle Rock campus for more than a decade now, but this former Public Allies teaching fellow still retains Eagle Rock’s philosophy that the student comes first in the education equation.
Ty was our 2004/2005 Public Allies Teaching Fellow In Human Performance. His passions ranged from teaching and working with young people to agriculture and carpentry. While he was with us, Ty focused this combined energies on a class called Green Thumb Bums.
In the late summer of 2005, when his fellowship came to an end, Ty packed up his year’s worth of belonging and — armed with Eagle Rock’s educational values that include learner-centered classrooms conducted in small democratic spaces where student voices are honored and respected — headed to Philadelphia. There he reconnected with his passion for carpentry, using that craft to build houses as a part of his service with AmeriCorps. Following that two-year stint, Ty rejoined the education community, enrolling in one of the first cohorts of the Philadelphia Teaching Fellowship, which is now part of The New Teacher Project (TNTP). (For anyone who may be interested, TNTP currently offers teaching fellowships in Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Indianapolis, Nashville, New York City, New Orleans, Nevada and Michigan).
After becoming certified as a science teacher in Pennsylvania, Ty taught 7th grade science at a public school in south Philadelphia. Public school, you say? Yes, Ty said he found it necessary to become a part of the public school system in order to fully understand what was broken so he could Continue reading…