Hnukusha (she/they) will graduate in 2025 with a music education degree from St. Olaf College. They’ll enter the workforce with extra confidence thanks to their experience as an AmeriCorps Teaching Fellow with Breakthrough Twin Cities, which offers academic enrichment and support for historically underrepresented students and their families. In Breakthrough’s six-week summer program, middle school students take challenging courses designed by aspiring teachers like Hnukusha.
What attracted you to serving at Breakthrough Twin Cities?
I first heard about Breakthrough through my aunt, who was also a teaching fellow and an instructional coach. I thought, this sounds like a good opportunity to dip my feet into teaching, which is why I applied.
When you started Breakthrough, you were new to teaching. What was the process of learning to teach like?
I had not taken any education classes before. During Breakthrough’s orientation, you learn the basics of making lesson plans: what you explain to the students, what we are learning, what the concept is or what the idea is.
They brought in other teachers to make sure we got the training to understand our roles as teaching fellows — we’re here to be mentors for students, be leaders for them — and to give us an idea of how to lead a classroom. Making a lesson and actually leading a lesson can be two very different things! We talked about how to engage students, what to do if maybe we need a reset in the classroom, who can we reach out to, what are our tools? That was really helpful.
What courses did you teach?
My first summer I taught science and a video-making elective. Then last summer I taught literature and an elective dance class. That was so much fun; I was more comfortable planning my lessons and making a unit plan. The dance students performed at the closing Celebration (kind of a show-and-tell at the end of the summer) — a lot of them really liked K-pop, so they danced to “Unforgiven” by Le Sserafim. I’m just so proud of them. They did a killer job.
Both summers I was with Breakthrough, I was unfamiliar with the content I was teaching. I really relied on my Instructional Coaches and the other teaching fellows to help build my curriculum. I wouldn’t have been able to make it as far as I did or engage the students effectively without them.
Breakthrough is big on academics and building community. What was your experience of balancing those two?
We want to challenge the students but not overwhelm them — you want them to enjoy their summer and not have to stress about academics (they’re not graded). There’s a lot of work on building community, relationships, communication, time management, listening, following directions, and collaboration with peers.
Just talking with students was a big thing I tried to do every day to build community; there was a crafts elective where we could sit down and work together and just chat. Another thing was checking in with other teaching fellows and staff and making sure to build that connection too. We were able to build that community where we could be like, “Hey, how are you doing? Want to go grab lunch together later?” Or sometimes we’d go out together on weekends. So we take care of each other in that way. We help each other out.
How did building a community help students with their academics?
By building community among students and between teachers and students, you’re building trust. Students will feel safer and more open to learning and making mistakes, which isn’t easy in front of your friends and peers – it’s a scary and vulnerable place to put yourself in. Everything’s more fun when you can trust one another too – you can ask each other for help, you joke around more, you feel like you could be yourself and no one will judge.
What was it like to teach middle school students?
Before going to Breakthrough, I was like, oh my goodness, I could never ever work with middle school students — I always hear that they’re so rowdy, it’s behavior problems on top of behavior problems because they’re going through that transition between elementary and high school. They’re going through a lot of physical, emotional and mental changes. But after a summer, I was like, they just want to learn! They’re growing! I loved my time with Breakthrough and working with them.
Did Breakthrough help you figure out that you truly want to teach?
Yeah. My sophomore year before Breakthrough, I was a little rocky — I was like, can I actually be a teacher? Being at Breakthrough has solidified that yes, I do want to go into teaching, I want to work with students. I want to be a positive impact on other people’s lives. And I feel like it prepared me mentally — I am not going to be thrown in front of a classroom and not know what to do and not know how to hold myself.
How is the Teaching Fellow role helpful for people considering going into education?
I do recommend it to anyone who is curious about education or being in front of a classroom. Breakthrough taught me a lot of things about myself — how I work with people, how I’m a leader, when to step back. As a returner, I felt great being a leader and being a resource for new teaching fellows. I really appreciate the community that we built among all the staff and faculty. It felt like we cared for each other.
Interested in serving with AmeriCorps? Check out Breakthrough Twin Cities and our other programs. If you’ve got questions, reach out to our recruitment team!
