PHOTO CREDIT: LEEPING LENSES PHOTOGRAPHY

Missy Testerman, the 2024 National Teacher of the Year, is a kindergarten through eighth grade English as a second language (ESL) specialist in her hometown of Rogersville, Tennessee. In recent years, immigrant families from various countries have made their way to Rogersville, a small farming community in Hawkins County, nestled in the Appalachian Mountains about 250 miles east of Nashville.

Testerman, who also serves as the ESL program director for the 600-student Rogersville City School, is praised for advocating for inclusivity and success for all students, making new arrival students and their families feel at home in the community, and serving as a leader and mentor to her colleagues. 

Three years ago, after nearly 30 years as a primary grade teacher in the one-school Rogersville City School District, Testerman decided to take advantage of Tennessee’s Grow Your Own program and add an ESL endorsement to her teaching license. From the school’s soon-to-transfer ESL teacher, Testerman knew that the job required language acquisition instruction as well as connecting with newcomer families and becoming their “family, community resource, and advocate.” She says she was eager to fill the void: “It worried me who would take care of these families.”

As the National Teacher of the Year, a recognition sponsored by the Council of Chief State School Officers, Testerman is stepping away from the classroom for a year to advocate for students and fellow educators. She spoke to ASBJ Senior Editor Michelle Healy about insights gained from three decades of teaching.

What’s a typical day for you as an ESL teacher?

The way that English as a second language services work in Tennessee is that students have an hour of service per day. If they score high enough on the annual English language proficiency exam, the ESL teacher and the general classroom teacher can co-teach the student in the general education classroom. We plan together, and we assess together. Students can feel like they have two reading teachers. If the ESL teacher has to pull out a new newcomer, the student is with her for an hour a day and with the general education teacher six hours a day. We also have to do a lot of communication back and forth about what types of things we need to make sure parents know and understand.

Where are Rogersville’s newcomer students coming from?

I inherited 21 new arrivals in my most recent caseload: students from four continents, Asia, Africa, North America, and South America, and five different countries, representing four language backgrounds: Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, and Gujarati (a language widely spoken in India).  That’s indicative of what we’ve seen the past several years: We’ll have just one family, or maybe a couple of families, who come from one language background. They don’t have an extensive community to turn to. Most of the time, people are just looking for a safe place to raise their family.

How do you begin building engagement with newcomer families?

Usually, I’m the first contact when we get a newcomer. I go to the office when a family with one of my potential ESL students arrives. I do the entire registration process with them so that they feel welcomed immediately. I use a messaging app that allows me to choose the language needed to communicate with the parents. The parent receives the message in their home language and then types a response that comes back to me in English. It’s not perfect, but it lets us start communicating immediately.

Is your workday pretty much what you expected?

When I first took the job, I remarked to someone that it was the weirdest job I’ve ever had. My day can start at eight o’clock when I’ve pulled out five little second graders, and we’re having class, and then I get a frantic call from the mom of a fourth grader who says she has a meeting with immigration or has to renew a child’s visa but can’t find the official birth certificate. Does the school have a copy because the appointment is coming up? Suddenly, my students and I are going on what we call “field trips.” The trips are good for my students to practice their speaking skills. We’ll go to the office, find that permanent record, get a copy, and leave it there for the parents to pick up. Most days, things like that come up. It could be a sick child in the clinic, and the nurse needs to call home, but there’s a language barrier. I had an eighth grader who wanted to play school soccer and needed a physical. The family didn’t really understand what that was or how to get one. I made sure that he got an appointment scheduled and found resources to help pay for it. My parents work very hard, but there’s not a lot of extra money for things like physicals. I ended up going to the appointment to help with the language translation.

How has the reception been for the new families?

Rogersville is a wonderful place to live and raise a family. It’s small enough that we all know each other. Sometimes, that’s a good thing and a bad thing; you know how small towns go. It’s not a very diverse place. It’s definitely an ultra-conservative area. While many have been warm and welcoming, unfortunately a negative that came out is that you sometimes see a different side of people you thought you knew well. That you thought had the same viewpoint about just loving and taking care of and teaching kids high-quality content. There are some political viewpoints and so forth. Those are things that I’ve had to work through.

What’s your advice for preparing future teachers?

Relationships are important, but we cannot love students into proficiency. Pre-service teachers have to come out understanding the pedagogy of learning and teaching. They have to be able to craft lessons that deliver high-quality content because that’s how we change kids’ lives. The system that we’re in is built on a continuing force: If you don’t get what you need in second grade, third grade is going to be hard. If you don’t catch up in third grade, fourth grade will be hard. And it just gets harder and harder. If you really love your students, and I 100% believe that teachers do, the best thing you can do is deliver high-quality content that pushes them forward and allows them to achieve so that they can get a good education and go out in the world and create a good future for themselves.

(This interview has been edited for length and clarity.)