20 for 20: Lydia K. Valentine, SGS Learning Specialist

My name is Lydia K. Valentine, and I am the Learning Specialist at SGS. I work with all the grades, though primarily with students who have learning plans or are in the process of developing learning plans. I also provide additional academic support to students. This is my 5th year at SGS!

Before I worked here, I knew of SGS, their mission, and the role that social justice played in that. I was also familiar with Rosetta Lee’s work and anytime that I could attend her workshops or hear her speak, I was there! When an opportunity arose to interview here, I jumped on it and got the job.

Right away, it was amazing to be at an institution where keeping the student’s best interests and considering different cultures and backgrounds were at the front of everything. The middle schoolers here also hear, learn, and use language and ideas of activists and leaders promoting justice, equity, and inclusion. This pushes them to grow socially and emotionally while allowing them to get to know themselves as learners. It is wonderful to be a part of that. 

Independence is a big piece. We want the students to be able to know how they learn and to develop strategies and routines that will stick with them beyond SGS. Our students are well versed in advocating for themselves and working toward what is best for them in education and life. 

Affinity groups are another important piece of the school. I am the faculty advisor for Brain Stuff which is the affinity group for students who have learning disabilities and also those who experience anxiety, depression, or other things that impact their learning and classroom experiences. I would say that students here don’t see their learning differences as a deficit, but, rather, just another aspect of who they are. 

Students strive to have a growth mindset consistently, and they are really open about working on themselves and acknowledging what they might need to work on, which is really refreshing to see. Plus, middle school kids are really funny. I’ve built my career around working with middle schoolers on purpose, and I love them because at this age they are starting to think about their beliefs and their futures while still having fun being kids. 

Yes, I was teaching Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and day two of teaching it, the students were saying that they viewed it as an anti-feminist play and were wondering why we were studying it. I loved that they already knew enough feminist ideology to question the play. Little did they know, Id already planned to have a friend of mine who is a feminist professor and Shakespeare scholar come in and talk about how feminism and Shakespearean text can go hand in hand. The kids were very thoughtful about it, and it was wonderful to see them thinking so critically.

What is special or unique about teaching at an all-girls’ school? 

This is a place where, no matter what the case may be at home, they are able to express themselves authentically. We are traditionally a girls’ school, but we have all gender expressions, using all pronouns. Some students change their pronouns regularly as they learn about their identity, so we have pins that show our pronouns. The commitment to inclusivity here is important to me. 

Having a space that has been specifically planned for who we are and what we do will allow more fluid transitions for interdisciplinary and co-curricular work with different grade levels. It will also have new technology that I’m really excited about because tech can be an essential tool when it comes to differentiated and universally designed instruction!

In sixth grade, I switched to public school from Catholic school. When I did, I had my first Black teacher, Mrs. Fields, and she was amazing. She had everyone in our class memorize and—throughout the year—recite the poem “Invictus” by William Ernest Henley. While we’d had poetry books at home, I had never had much experience discussing and dissecting poetry before, but that really started my love of figurative language, symbols, and poetry in general. Now, I’m the Tacoma Poet Laureate, and my first collection of poetry, Brief Black Candles, came out in November 2020. A big highlight has been sending the book to Mrs. Fields and having her tell me what she thought. That was really, really, awesome. 

Poetry is a great way for students to explore various personas on paper, whether it be their own or a different persona completely. I let students know that they have the ability to do some deep exploration there. I love being able to take the fear out of poetry for students and show them different ways to experience words, formatting, and flow. 

I grew up in a town called Aliquippa, Pennsylvania. It is a small city north of Pittsburgh that thrived until J&L Steel Mill started to close its plants. While that aspect of my hometown’s identity crumbled, we are still very much known for football, as a lot of well-known football stars have come out of my hometown, such as recent Hall of Fame inductee Ty Law. 

For my MFA thesis, I wrote a play called Aliquippa that is set there and has a lot to do with the family, football, and steel-like strength.

For undergraduate, I went to Johns Hopkins, and I studied psychology on the pre-med track. That was very different from what I ended up doing. In the summers, I began working in a program called Summerbridge Pittsburgh during which college students taught middle school students, and I fell in love with teaching and middle schoolers. For grad school, I earned my MFA in Writing from Goddard College in their Washington program which happens on their pop-up campus in Port Townsend.

 

Most people don’t know how goofy we are as adults and how often people get up and dance or burst into song in faculty meetings. The energy and the joy that we bring to our students doesn’t stop when they aren’t here. We enjoy and believe in each other and the mission, and we remind one another to come back to that joy when things get hectic or stressful.