Grad Career Profiles: Sarah Gregory

A few months ago, we ran a brief series highlighting some graduate English alumni and their careers. We thought we'd follow it up with an interview with a current student who is balancing studies and career: Sarah Gregory, current MA student and high school teacher. Sarah was kind enough to speak with us about her MA studies as well as her teaching.

1. What do you do at your job? What are some advantages and some challenges of working in your field?

I have been in education for seven years, the last four of which I spent as a high school English teacher at a small private school in Lancaster County. Since it is a small school, I taught a different schedule each year, including a variety of English-related courses for grades 9-12. For the 2022-23 school year, I went part time in teaching to begin the English MA program at Villanova full time. For me, the best part of teaching high school English is that it combines many things I love and can do well: working with students, facilitating discussions, tutoring in writing, and studying literature deeply and broadly. One of the challenges facing many teachers right now is the effects of the political and public climate surrounding education. Teaching is certainly a challenging job, but a highly rewarding one; still, many passionate individuals are leaving the field in recent years. While there is not a singular reason teachers leave their jobs, I do have some advice from my own experience: the support (or lack thereof) of administration, parents, the board, and broader community can make or break the longevity of an otherwise wonderful career. If you love teaching but are finding that your experience is more unbearable than it is challenging, it may be that you’re in the wrong school, not the wrong occupation. There are many ways to be a teacher, and once you are one, you never really stop being one. Talk to other teachers about your experience, consider getting creative with your employment options, and remind yourself why you love teaching. We’re all in this together, and you are not alone!

2. How was it balancing teaching in your school with being in the Villanova MA program?

I think teachers are especially well-equipped to find a good balance in academic settings. We’re always trying to fit more grading, reading, and planning into prep periods and the few minutes before or after school, and then there’s the special responsibilities like coaching, directing musicals, various in-school duties, drills, assemblies, and faculty meetings that come on top of all of the class-specific work. I gained a uniquely good sense of time management through teaching. Once I got into a routine with my schedules, the work was pretty manageable with a few exceptions: grad school term paper time, high school grades being due, and AP exam lead-up. While the first semester was a big adjustment, I tried to keep adapting. What helped me avoid the pile up was writing everything out on one big calendar, and then scheduling time each day to look ahead and get started on bigger assignments. I also used to spend a lot longer commenting on my own students’ essays than I should have, trying to provide encouragement and advice for each possible thing, and I had to let go of that expectation on myself, completely changing the way I provided feedback. In the end, this shift actually ended up making me a better teacher, and I saw some of my students improve their writing more than in previous years!

3. Did your work in the Villanova English MA filter into your high school teaching?

My work in the Villanova English MA has absolutely filtered into my high school teaching. There were many literature-specific things I learned that applied directly to my AP Lit or World Lit courses; for example, I taught “Araby” to AP Lit students, and we read Dubliners in a Ulysses course I took. I also took a course on the “Ethnic Canon” that helped me to reconsider the way I was writing and developing curriculum at my school. I think another benefit of teaching and being a student at the same time is a sense of camaraderie with my students. We were able to share the fact that we had assignments, reading homework that needed to be completed, and were trying to improve our writing and discussion abilities. This led to some really wonderful personal growth for myself, but also made me a better teacher and allowed several students to open up to English in a way they hadn’t before. And, of course, developing my own skills in English only made me better at teaching those same skills.

4. What advice would you give to secondary teachers considering an MA in English, at Villanova or otherwise?

It’s practically a requirement to get a master’s degree of some sort when you are a teacher in most states, but I think especially high school teachers should consider getting a degree in their subject area, in addition to or instead of a master’s in education. While I don’t think theory necessarily makes someone a better teacher, there are many benefits to finding a community of people with whom you can discuss your passion and interests outside of teaching. At my school, though I had peers in other disciplines, there were a few years when I was the only person in the English “department.” Through pursuing an MA in English at Villanova, I have an amazing cohort, peers who are also teachers, and professors who care as much about the quality of their instruction as they do about their respective fields of study. The conversations we have together, not only about English, but also about teaching, are ones that will stick with me as I continue to pursue a future in English and in teaching.