Rehema Mwaisela’s first love was science and math as a young undergraduate at University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She hadn’t imagined herself as a teacher, but her journey through a tutoring program at a Baltimore City public school has changed the trajectory of her life.

She began at Cherry Hill Elementary/Middle last year, tutoring small groups of second, fifth and seventh graders in math in an attempt to help jump-start their learning after the pandemic. While she helped them, she also learned something about herself.

“I have always been the type of person who would say I learn best by teaching people. I demonstrate knowing something by teaching someone something,” she said.

Mwaisela slowly realized teaching could be her future, not just a technique to cement information into her brain. She has gone on to become a Sherman STEM Teacher Scholar, with a full undergraduate scholarship that gives her support in a journey to becoming a teacher.

She will graduate this spring and can either go into a one-year Master of Arts in education program at UMBC, which will allow her to become a certified teacher, or she will enter the teaching profession with a conditional license in the fall and earn her master’s gradually while teaching. UMBC has no undergraduate major in education, so all Sherman Scholars have a major in some other academic discipline.

UMBC provides tutoring through a Reach Together Tutoring Program that the university started in 2021; it uses federal funds to pay undergraduates to tutor students. A portion of federal recovery dollars has been approved to offer tutoring in schools around the country. High-quality research has shown tutoring to be one of the most effective means of helping students catch up to grade level. UMBC’s Reach Together program has provided 10,000 hours of tutoring since its inception.

When she began teaching seventh graders, Mwaisela was particularly intrigued by the challenge of how to make the material interesting. “You can present math as this puzzle,” she said.

Many of the students that she tutors are hesitant to do math at all, so she decided to try to level the playing field for students by having games with an element of chance thrown in.

“It was a challenge for me that I started to enjoy,” Mwaisela said. “Delivering math to kids is something I felt able to do and it was refreshing to look forward to.”

The UMBC program has benefited not just the 355 students tutored, but undergraduates like Mwaisela who have been drawn into the teaching profession.

Sara Krauss, who is director of school partnerships, said the program tries to gauge a student’s “sense of comfort level with teaching in the city.” Because Baltimore city students are often portrayed as being “bad” students, Krauss said, UMBC is careful to give their students a perspective of approaching teaching with respect for their students.

UMBC graduates about 20 to 25 Sherman scholars every year, about 80% of whom choose to teach in schools in the city with a high percentage of low-income families, said Rehana Shafi, director of the Sherman Scholars program. The university also has a special program for current city teachers who aren’t fully certified to take classes toward their master’s degree to become fully certified. About 15 teachers are now in that program.

Students who were tutored in math through Reach grew by about 3.4 percentile points last year on the iReady — a diagnostic test given periodically through the school year — compared to peers who didn’t receive tutoring. While the students, on average, are still far below grade level, the hope is that it will encourage further success, Krauss said.

UMBC has long provided support to city schools. An 10-year partnership with Lakeland Elementary/Middle School is still going strong, and Cherry Hill’s school now has four Sherman Scholars working in some capacity, along with numerous tutors.

Haleemat Adekoya, a recent UMBC graduate, had intended to pursue a fifth year at UMBC to get her master’s degree in education. But when Cherry Hill’s principal, David Guzman, offered her a teaching job, she decided to plunge ahead with her master’s studies while teaching English to fifth graders.

A former student leader in Baltimore County and the daughter of Nigerian immigrants, Adekoya always wanted to teach. She had no interest in the usual professions that Nigerian immigrants are supposed to pursue: doctor, engineer, IT or sports. Her goal is to become a school system superintendent, but she believes that she must first immerse herself in teaching. She asked herself, “What does it look like to be an expert in the classroom?”

Guzman said Adekoya “is smashing it.” He wanted to hire her because he noticed the way that she engaged with students at the school. “It was evident that she could manage a class and engage kids, which is half the battle,” said Guzman.

The Sherman program — which received a $21 million gift from the Sherman Family Foundation in February — is designed in part to produce culturally responsive teachers of color and to support the city schools with partnerships.

Adekoya said the support and mentoring she has gotten has been invaluable.

When outside partners come to a school offering to help in some capacity, principals often feel weighed down, as their time and attention is diverted away from critical tasks to working out details of the partnership. But that isn’t so with the Sherman Scholars.

“They have really thought it through from a principal lens,” Guzman said. “They have thought everything through. … I don’t feel this is cumbersome task. This is perfect.”

liz.bowie@thebaltimorebanner.com

This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Haleemat Adekoya's name.