LONGMEADOW –   Annually one educator from across the United States is chosen to be the “National Teacher of the Year” following becoming the teacher of the year in their state, a formal written application, extensive interviews and speeches.  The current reigning National Teacher of the Year is Massachusetts’ first: Sydney Chaffee of Boston.  On Feb. 13, Chaffee traveled to Bay Path University in Longmeadow to give her presentation: “Come Outside: The Future of Education.”

Chaffee didn’t know that she wanted to be a teacher when she went away to college.  In fact, she went to college to become a poet.

“That was my dream, I was going to be a writer.  I realized I wasn’t meant to be a poet,” she chuckled. “I realized that because my poetry professor told me I wasn’t meant to be a poet!”

Chaffee decided that she wanted to do what her professors were doing: teaching. A colleague gave her a book to read about education, which in turn made her realize she wanted to teach kids at the high school level.  She spent a summer between her junior and senior year of college working with kids, and the experience further enforced her desire to become an educator.

“It was an incredible experience. I realized I loved teaching, and I stuck with it,” she recalled.

Chaffee was first nominated to be Massachusetts teacher of the year for 2017, which then put her into a cohort of educators from each of the 50 states as well as the U.S. territories and Washington D.C. Each of the teachers were then required to submit essays in order to choose four finalists.  The finalists then traveled to meet in Washington D.C., where they conducted an in-depth interview process to choose the 2017 National Teacher of the Year.

“It was absolutely intimidating. It was a huge honor to be selected for Massachusetts, then to be a finalist; I never thought I’d be selected.  The group of finalists was an amazing group of people.  I’m really grateful I was chosen,” Chaffee said.

For the past nine years Chaffee has been a humanities teacher at Codman Academy Charter Public School in Boston.  Since being named National Teacher of the Year, Chaffee took a yearlong sabbatical to fulfill the duties that come with the title.

“I travel around the country and world to talk about teaching. I’m playing the role of an ambassador.  There’s a misconception of ‘being the best teacher in the country,’ no teacher would call themselves the best,” Chaffee said. “I basically get to go around and talk to folks about all of the great things happening in education.”

Chaffee has been traveling since last summer talking with other educators and future teachers about the significance of education as well as the important role student’s play.

“I had the opportunity to travel to Ethiopia in September and represent American teachers, and they asked me to talk about the future of education. I was scared and intimidated by that topic because I had no idea.  I realized the future of education is that we’re doing more of the beautiful things that are already happening in school; more student-centered learning, empowering and honoring students,” she explained.

The best advice that Chaffee can give fellow educators is to recognize that they do not have to complete their job alone, there is no need to isolate themselves from one another and that teachers have so much more in common in regard to education than there is separating them.

“You don’t have to be perfect. So many teachers think we close our doors and we do this as individuals, but actually, we learn to work with one another and are vulnerable enough to collaborate, reach out, get ideas.  We’re so much smarter when we work together,” she continued. “A popular narrative in education is that we’re all arguing with each other, whether it’s charter schools, traditional schools, private schools, equity, social emotional concerns, testing, arguing about this and that.  There are so many more things that we have in common that we agree on, and if we can start there, we will get so much more done.”

“It’s been so exciting to go to so many schools and to see again and again there’s that thing again that so many of us agree on: we have the heart of our work,” Chaffee explained.

Starting on Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14 until Feb. 21 teachers across the nation are celebrating “Love Teaching Week.”  This week, explained by Chaffee, was created by several Teachers of the Year to celebrate and highlight the reasons why teachers enjoy and value the work that they do.