“She speaks and writes with candor, clarity, creativity, and conviction. “Amy radiates positive energy and enthusiasm,” says Dr. Laura, I wanted to make sure it was my best.” I just go with the flow and do the best I can.
“I'm not usually the kind of person who needs validation. Laura has this way of making you feel like you are on top of the world,” says Maldonado. Professor Laura Schall-Leckrone was Maldonado’s first professor at Lesley for Essential Linguistics. And it has been such an incredible experience.” Finding a place at LesleyĪt Lesley, she found a vital sense of community among like-minded educators. I thought 'I won't fit in there.' I didn't even think it was possible. It'd be great for you.’ And Lesley's name carries a lot of weight in the world of education.” “She had the best things to say about Lesley,” Maldonado remembers.
A colleague and close friend who was a Lesley alumna was returning to Lesley for her master’s degree and urged her to apply. And I tried for two years and I wasn’t able to do it."Īt a crossroads, she took some time to ponder her next steps. “The school I worked in was a neighborhood charter so I didn’t necessarily need a license, but I needed to be working toward it. She won accolades for her teaching, but struggled to pass the Massachusetts Teacher Licensing (MTEL) exam. “It was the best experience of my entire life,” she reflects. Bilingual in English and Spanish, Maldonado had never considered teaching ESL, but she trusted her supervisor. Her supervisor at the time suggested that she might be an ideal fit for an ESL position that had opened up. I got to work with a bunch of kids and learn so many cool stories about them.” Taking off as an educatorĪfter graduation, Maldonado taught preschool briefly, but her first position teaching middle schoolers in Lawrence was where things really clicked. She was instantly hooked and joined the Middlesex slam poetry team. “I was feeling brave one day and thought, 'I want to try it,'” she recalls. “I was writing poetry, but low key - no one really knew that I was a poet,” she says.Īt Middlesex Community College, she met a group of students who wrote poetry and performed at local open mic events. She interned at the Robert Frost Foundation but had never shared her poems with anyone. You go through peaks and lows and figure out the process.” A budding poetĪn English major in college, Maldonado's love for poetry first developed in high school. But I learned that it's actually not linear at all. “I thought it was linear - you go to elementary school, middle school, high school, college, and then you get your dream job. “No one in my family had gone to college,” she says.
But her path to becoming an educator has taken some unexpected twists. from Lesley in Teaching English as a Second Language (TESOL) and Bilingual Education. From teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) in her hometown of Lawrence, Massachusetts, to becoming the assistant principal of the Consentino Middle School in Haverhill, her childhood teaching dreams are coming true.
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