Board Certified

How a novice became a master teacher with a little help from her friends.

By Julie Hutcheson-Downwind

At the time, I was teaching at a predominantly American Indian school. Most of my children were from my tribe, Ojibwe (Anishinabe). I wanted to be the best teacher I could be so I could give my students every opportunity to experience success in education. I attended many trainings and tried every new initiative, but what I was really looking for was a way to compare my teaching to that of experienced professionals teaching students of the same age in the same content area.    

Finally in my fourth year, a colleague gave me a copy of the standards for National Board Certification. I felt that they were descriptive of accomplished teaching, yet not prescriptive. Knowing that they were written by teachers in the field, I felt they were authentic and of the highest quality. I finally had a road map to follow to become the teacher I wanted to be.

There were 20 of us who went through the certification process together, eight in the early childhood group, from many different kinds of schools. We met twice a month, with the assistance of a facilitator and a group of National Board-certified teachers from the previous year. The most memorable part of the process was working with so many wonderful teachers. We didn't have release time for visiting classrooms, but we watched each other's videotapes and talked over our work. I finally had a place to share with other teachers. When people gave feedback, it was not evaluative, but "this is what I do to address a particular standard."

It was difficult. Anyone who commits to this process is taking a risk, opening themselves up to self-examination and examination by others. But I feel that teaching practice improves wherever the National Board standards are examined. It is not the final result—whether a teacher gets National Board certified—it is using the standards to guide instruction that leads to accomplished teaching.

It was hard to keep working at it with all the other demands on my time. Often, it was eight o'clock at night before I could get to my certification work, and I was tired. I was in an urban area, in one of the toughest schools.

We each put together portfolios with videotapes, student work samples, written commentaries on our lessons: what I taught and why I felt it demonstrated meeting a standard.

I still keep the standards. My book is pretty tattered at this point because I use it. Those standards have stood the test of time, and I still ask myself, am I doing this? What needs improvement? For example, the standards tell us that "play can be an important vehicle for integrating and understanding content across the curriculum." For my children, play is important. I may teach them math with games and songs because they learn best that way. The certification process made me more aware that we need to teach the material in ways that help children retain it.

There are manuals that tell us what content we need to teach, but not often how to teach it. It's in the how that the magic happens.

Almost 10 years have gone by. Many things have changed in education and my practice has evolved. But as I begin the process of renewing my National Board Certification, I still see the strength and guidance in the standards. They still provide the road map to the kind of teacher I want to be, the kind I want for my own children.

Julie Hutcheson-Downwind teaches kindergarten at her neighborhood school, John A. Johnson Achievement Plus Elementary, in St. Paul, Minnesota. Find more about National Board Certification at NEA Today Extra.

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