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How to Grow

Inspired By Their Teachers, Hartwick Educators Make A Lasting Impact

by Libby Cudmore

He may not know it, but Mr. Matthews, a fifth-grade teacher at Greater Plains Elementary School, planted a seed in one of his students that continues to bear fruit nearly 50 years later.

“Mr. Matthews was such an important person in my life,” said Betsy Bloom, a professor in Hartwick’s Education Department. “He taught us to explore and discover. He was the teacher I have always wanted to be.”

Following Mr. Matthews’ inspiration, Bloom taught social studies at Oneonta Middle School for 10 years, getting her doctorate in education from Binghamton University. She then joined Hartwick with the intention of training the next generation of teachers — not just in how to lead a classroom, but how to impact their own students’ lives.

“In the Hartwick Teacher Education Program, we have always communicated to our teacher candidates that their job does not end with the textbook,” she said. “Our classes are hands-on and project-oriented because those are the teachers we want to see in the classroom — creative people who will build engaging lessons around the needs and interests of the students in front of them.”

This thinking led to the launch of the Inclusive Elementary Education certification, which builds on the Teacher Education Program’s foundational philosophy of inclusivity. This academic major is designed to prepare teachers to work in various settings, including general, special education and inclusive elementary school classrooms.

“People with disabilities have been marginalized historically,” she said. “We want to make sure that every student who is going to be an elementary educator has the ability to work with all their students to create a more inclusive classroom, not just a room tucked away by the custodian’s closet.”

It’s all part of the department’s philosophy to not only teach equity and inclusion but also make schools themselves more equitable.

Elizabeth Bloom

“Schools can be laboratories for social justice. Everything we do is meant to encourage future teachers to examine and eliminate biases they may have brought with them.”

Betsy Bloom

Professor of Education

Betsy Bloom posed portrait in classroom

Professor Betsy Bloom

Hartwick Education Department

GROWING THE EDUCATION COMMUNITY

Month-long mini-practicums at Oneonta Job Corps Center, Springbrook Community Campus and schools across the country help students understand that not all classrooms look like the ones they may have come up through. That’s deliberate, said Bloom, to prepare future teachers for opportunities they may never have expected — or even known about.

“A teacher may not go on to teach English or math in front of what you might call a traditional classroom,” she said. “They may be working one-on-one with students who are nonverbal. They may be working with students who don’t speak the same language or come from a different background than they do. And our students will be ready.”

That means more job opportunities for students.

“Because we offer comprehensive training in both general and inclusive education, schools are really excited about our students,” said Bloom. “Every classroom will include a diverse range of needs and abilities. Our graduates can help resource-strapped schools give all their students the best possible education.”

The department has a system: wherever possible, students from rural areas get some of their teaching hours at urban schools, just as students from urban areas get to experience teaching in rural districts.

“We even had a student complete her mini-practicum in a one-room schoolhouse in Wyoming once!” Bloom added.

Because wherever they are, the school is often the center of the community.

“In under-resourced communities, schools are often the last remaining piece of infrastructure, especially in rural areas with diminishing populations,” Bloom said. “Upstate New York, for example, many schools now offer school-based health centers for students. Initiatives like the Backpack Program help alleviate food insecurity for families. There are after-school programs,
mental health care and so many other things that were not traditionally conceived of as being under the purview of schools but now play a critical role in sustaining the community.”

Now, Bloom wants to further initiate this thinking on a global scale. Funded by two Hartwick College Faculty Research Grants, Bloom and her research team have been investigating, along with their Rwandan research partners, how to establish the World Health Organization’s Health Promoting Schools (HPS) framework in two neighboring schools in rural Rwanda.

“The HPS model, which leverages the school as the center of health, education and well-being in the community, has been successfully established in other low-income countries,” said Bloom. “Students don’t just learn how to read and write in an HPS; they learn how to protect themselves and their families from neglected tropical diseases, such as intestinal worms,
trachoma and dengue.”

READY FOR CHALLENGES

Hartwick’s approach is also aimed at filling hiring gaps in the field.

“There’s been a shortage of teachers for a decade,” said Bloom. “But the upside is that every one of our graduates who wanted a job in teaching got one, sometimes before graduation.”

She said students often receive job offers from the schools where they have done their student teaching placements. There are also openings for people who want to impact student lives outside the classroom.

“There are fields that still need people,” said Thomas Brindley ’99, Superintendent of Oneonta Central School district. “There are many openings in Family & Consumer Science programs, teacher prep, social workers, school psychologists and nurses.”

But there’s more to teaching than just lesson plans and grade books.

“They are very flexible because of what they had to adapt to during COVID, so they’re able to apply new and changing technologies really well,” said Bloom.

They also bring an enhanced empathy to their students.

“Hartwick students, especially now, are very sensitive to the social-emotional needs among the children and youth in their classrooms,” she added.

But this isn’t new. Brindley remembers this kind of environment when he was a non-traditional student at Hartwick.

“You see the way Hartwick professors teach, lead and guide their students, and how they encourage those students to do that not only in their own classrooms but with parents and colleagues as well,” he said. “That was modeled for me every day.”

And when he hires, he looks for precisely that.

“I’m less interested in a person’s GPA and more interested that they’re someone I feel confident can form positive relationships with kids. Teaching is, in many ways, a human interaction industry.”

Thomas Brindley ’99
Oneonta City School District Superintendent

SEEDS PLANTED

As Mr. Matthews taught her, the students Bloom and her colleagues have taught have gone on to directly impact others, shaping the next generation of thoughtful educators.

Like Vincenzo Greco ’10, now the Upper School Social Sciences chair and football coach at North Broward Preparatory School in Coconut Creek, Fla.

“Hartwick treated us like teachers from the start. They trusted us to work with students, to have these conversations in the classroom and set these relationships with your students, whether you’re going in for an afternoon or a semester.”

Vincenzo Greco ’10

North Broward Preparatory School

As a student at Jefferson High School, just outside of Oneonta, Shania Speenburgh ’19, was inspired by her student teacher, Vincenzo Greco ’10. Today, she teaches middle and high school history at nearby Gilbertsville-Mount Upton Central School District.

Bloom celebrated the 2015 commencement with Kalindi Naslind ’15, one of her students.

Bloom led a group of students on a J Term trip to Ghana in 2013.

Following his graduation from Hartwick, Greco was hired to teach global studies and coach soccer and basketball at Jefferson Central School, where he completed his student teaching. Shania Speenburgh ’19 was his student.

“Mr. Greco was my person,” she said. “I was always in his room, on the field or the court — and he was always there with wise words and lots of support.”

“She was my ‘patient zero’ in terms of using my Hartwick education to get students excited about studying history,” Greco said.

And it worked. Though Speenburgh initially came to Hartwick for nursing, Greco’s influence remained on her mind.

“When I switched to education, he was my first phone call,” she said. “He set me up with the History Department and put in a good word for me.”

She did her student teaching placements at Golding Middle School in Cobleskill and Gilbertsville-Mount Upton Central School District, where she was offered a job upon graduation. She now teaches seventh-, eighth- and 11th-grade history, along with a “History Through Film” elective at the school. She also did her spring break practicum with Greco in his classroom.

“I keep trying to convince her to come teach with me,” he joked, “but she’s doing really great work where she is now.”

CONTINUING TO GROW

You’d be hard-pressed to find a student in the Education Department whose life wasn’t directly impacted by one of their teachers.

“There was a teacher at my school in Poughkeepsie, Catherine Bryson, and she really made it a mission — even on tough days — to show us she really cared,” said Alaiysia Bonet-King ’25. “She taught us that history served as a basic foundation for where we come from, social issues, being civil citizens and context for the future.”

And Bonet-King plans to return the favor, aiming to do her student teaching and eventually return home to work at that same school.

“I was once in those same students’ shoes, learning from the same teachers they are learning from,” she said. “Having someone who looks like you and knows where you’ve been is important to the students.”

Bonet-King added, “There would be nothing more fulfilling to me than to give back to the community and help educate the remarkable students to come.”

“Every single person who works in a school district, from the grounds crew to the administration, is a teacher. Their classroom is different, but they’re teachers; they model respectful behavior, kindness and support for our students — and that’s what I was shown at Hartwick.”

Thomas Brindley ’99 P’19

Oneonta City School District Superintendent

Bloom, Greco and Speenburgh all agree.

“That’s the power of a Hartwick education,” said Bloom. “Just like Mr. Matthews taught me, it gives you the power to transform yourself and your community.”

The Together, We Soar campaign is expected to conclude in fall 2026. To learn more about the campaign and to participate, visit hartwick.edu/togetherwesoar.

Hartwick College Together, We Soar Campaign Logo

June 12, 2024
From The Wick Magazine, Wick Mag Spring 24

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