Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

March 7, 2024

Abigail Arnold | Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

When Marcie Brewer, AGS ‘19 and EdM ‘20, first decided to apply for Brandeis’s Teacher Leadership program, she was at a crossroads in her career. “Did I want to go into administration,” she asked, “or stay in the classroom?” She saw the program as an opportunity to build leadership skills and see if administration was right for her. Brewer ultimately decided that being a teacher leader was “the best of both worlds,” allowing her to be in the classroom with students and also lead initiatives at Portland Jewish Academy, where she teaches middle school humanities and drama. In the process, she got more out of her experience at Brandeis than she ever expected to.

When she entered the Advanced Graduate Studies program, Brewer didn’t originally plan to stay on for the second year and get a master’s degree, since she already had two. However, she loved the program so much that she wanted to continue the experience. Supported by the faculty and her peers at Brandeis, Brewer worked on an initiative to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion at her school, facilitating a Professional Learning Community (PLC) of teachers who worked to discuss the equity of student voices in the classroom, explore how diversity and social justice manifests in the curriculum, and shape how Portland Jewish Academy approached these topics. “The work that came out of the program in both my school and personal life was profound and has transformed who I am as a person,” she said. “I always aspired to be an anti-racist educator and promote social justice, but the work I did in my school with that initiative continues today.”

Brewer especially enjoyed returning to the student role in the Teacher Leadership program. “Putting myself back in the student position helped me reconnect to the experiences of my own students,” she said. She had many words of praise for the faculty members who supported her along the way. Minna Heilpern, her coach, met with her biweekly on Zoom and visited her at her school in the first year, coaching her through challenges as she facilitated initiatives. Particularly in the second year in the program, when Brewer faced issues with a lack of time and resources for her work, Heilpern helped her figure out “how to pivot, keep the PLC going, and keep it meaningful.” Brewer also found the study of institutional leadership with Meg Anderson very beneficial. “She gave me the language and theoretical understanding to explain my subjective experiences,” said Brewer. “Things I was feeling on a gut level I now understood.” In addition, Brewer worked with Marya Levenson to develop a job description for her ideal teacher leader role, which she described as “very empowering,” and with Sharon Feiman-Nemser and some other members of her cohort on article development, which she said gave her “the initiative and confidence I had lacked until then to write for publications and see myself as an action researcher.”

She felt particularly honored when she had the opportunity to speak at her cohort’s graduation, which took place online due to the Covid-19 pandemic. As part of her speech, she shared a spoken word poem by one of her students. “Being able to share the direct impact that the work I did at Brandeis had on my students was so gratifying,” she said, “and I was really, really proud to be able to share his work.”

Brewer felt the impact of her time in the program immediately and continues to do so today. Since she graduated when the schools in Portland, Oregon, were locked down for the pandemic, which they continued to be for almost a year, she couldn’t do as many immediate initiatives, but she managed to keep the PLC going – it even grew due to the ability to participate online and to heightened interest in the Black Lives Matter movement and supporting diversity in the classroom. “I’m proud it’s still going,” she said. Brewer will soon be working as the curriculum coordinator for Portland Jewish Academy’s middle school. She is excited to look at the school’s values and how they can use them to frame and drive the curriculum, particularly in terms of what social justice means in the classroom.

Brewer has advised many of her colleagues to participate in the Teacher Leadership program as well. “I look back on my life and career and think of transformational moments that reshaped me and redirected me to new places – and this experience was by far one of the most transformational,” she said. To those who are considering the program, she added, “Run, don’t walk. If you think you’re too old, you’re not. Prepare to work really hard, and know that it’s worth every moment.”