Student News

During her senior year of college, Raedell Cannie recalls the moment her academic path changed from journalism to education.

She was listening to a guest lecture from a journalist who described her research for a story on homelessness. The journalist got to know a homeless woman for the purposes of collecting information, but did not maintain the relationship after the story had been written.

Soon after starting her doctoral dissertation fieldwork at the University of Washington, Deborah Silvis (PhD ‘18) visited a family to observe their use of digital media.

The family's 12-year-old daughter had her heart set on getting a dog, and her mother suggested she research which breed she wanted. Her daughter jumped into the task, spending hours on her laptop, watching videos to learn more about various breeds.

Sixth-grade teacher Ryan Mateo Sharnbroich has one goal for the first day of school: to make sure his students know they are welcomed and understood in his classroom. Sharnbroich, who is pursuing his Master of Education in Instructional Leadership, is laying the foundation to embrace difficult and sensitive conversations about equity and difference with his students later in the year.

Tsewone Melaku discovered engineering in high school through a UW mentorship program. Now a UW student majoring in Human Centered Design and Engineering and minoring in Education, Learning and Society, she is aligning her interests in engineering with her passion to make STEM education accessible to underrepresented high school students.

Afnan Boutrid believes in the power of education to unite and heal. It's a belief reinforced in one of the world's most conflicted regions.

In 2013, Boutrid started a three-month research experience at Hand in Hand, a bilingual and binational school in Jerusalem that’s one of the few schools serving both Israeli and Palestinian students.

Despite the region’s deep social divisions, she observed Israeli and Palestinian students, teachers and administrators learning and working together.

How can schools move from being a source of inequity and harm to a source of community resurgence?

Intrigued by this question, Meixi (PhD ‘19) found that building relationships between communities and schools is the key to unlocking new ways of teaching, learning and knowing.

Originally from Singapore, Meixi spent childhood years at an indigenous hill tribe school in northern Thailand, which is where she saw the deep need to explore diverse methods of teaching and learning.

Growing up in New Orleans, Elzena McVicar (MIT ‘10) was surrounded by a family filled with teachers. Years of family conversations about education convinced McVicar that teaching was not for her.

While working on her bachelor's degree in anthropology, however, McVicar took a work study job as a tutor. Then, after graduating from college, she found herself working in an elementary school as an AmeriCorps volunteer. These two experiences changed McVicar’s perceptions of education, ultimately leading her in a new professional direction.

When Luke Reichley was in elementary school 20-odd years ago, paint and clay were his primary tools for making.

While children have long used their imaginations to create toys and art from whatever is at hand, digital technologies are opening new opportunities for educators to bring making into their classrooms. This summer, Reichley and his fellow elementary teacher candidates at the University of Washington College of Education are experiencing a glimpse into that future.

While working as a high school English teacher, Lisa Sibbett (PhD ‘18) became aware of a disconnect between social justice-focused teaching and its real-world application.