Priscilla Pan
Junior / Elementary Education Major and Sociology Minor / New York, NY
You say something, you do something, and a change is made. Goucher really supports that. And I feel like that’s really developed my mindset. I should say something. That’s how our country works. You need to speak up.
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When Priscilla Pan first took a work-study job tutoring at Yorkwood, an elementary school in Baltimore City, she was basically looking for a way to make some extra cash. Now, three years later, the New York City native’s deep commitment to working with inner-city children has become the cornerstone of her Goucher education.
“I’m from the inner city, so I know what it’s like in the schools, without enough resources, without enough staff,” says Pan. “At Yorkwood, because of an internal dispute between Baltimore City and an after-school care program, half the funding and half the staff disappeared. They had the same amount of students, four or five teachers, one supervisor, and us—the students from Goucher.”
Along with her fellow students, Pan rose to the challenge, continuing to tutor at Yorkwood despite the lack of resources. While working one-on-one with students, she often found that children labeled as “slow” or “unintelligent” thrived on the individual attention that she and other student tutors provided.
“All of this got to me,” she recalls. “We need better teachers in the inner city. These kids have just as much potential as anyone else, but they’re not given the chance.”
Pan’s newfound passion for working with children, along with her broad range of academic interests, naturally led her to pursue a degree in elementary education—a major that requires students to attain a breadth of knowledge while gaining hands-on experience in local elementary schools. Pan completed fieldwork at Roland Park Country School, a private elementary school, and Kennedy Krieger Institute, a school for students with disabilities, two experiences that provided a context for her ongoing work-study position at Yorkwood, as well as the psychological and pedagogical techniques covered in her courses.
“You learn about motivation, and a whole lot of other basic elements of educational psychology, then try to apply that in your fieldwork,” says Pan. “Goucher’s Education Department tries to prepare you for just about any situation you’re going to face.”
“Fieldwork” took on a whole new meaning for Pan when she took an intensive course abroad in South Africa during her sophomore year. She spent three weeks studying social policy and inequality, and stayed with a rural family in KwaZulu Natal, a province located in the eastern part of the country. Her experience there, along with the questions she found herself answering about education in the United States, changed her perspective about inner-city education.
“We were on a radio show one day, and they asked us questions about education. I pointed out some of the issues I’ve seen in the U.S., and the guy said ‘But it’s free-there is no free education here,’” says Pan. “I had never even thought about that. So when I came back to Yorkwood, I was thinking, ‘Okay, this situation sucks, but we still have a building. We still have paper. We still have teachers.’ I’m not saying that we shouldn’t improve our system here, but I’m saying that we do have a system, and we need to use whatever resources we have.”
Pan plans to return to South Africa with members of Goucher’s Education Department to teach elementary-aged children how to tend a garden, built for them by the nonprofit Umthathi Training Project. They’ll learn basic math and science in the process.
“You teach area by teaching them the area of their garden,” explains Pan. “You teach math: three cups of water per day, plus three cups of water per day, and so on.”
While in South Africa, Pan was surprised that many South Africans did not believe she was American, due to her Chinese-American features. Their confusion about Pan’s background led her to pursue a second, more personal study-abroad experience—a semester studying education at Beijing’s Capital Normal University. She learned a lot about Chinese history, language, and literature, and spent time with her Chinese relatives.
“One guy in South Africa said to me, ‘You’re not American, you’re from China.’ That drove me to China. That was what I was trying to find out: what am I?” says Pan. “I realized that I’m Chinese-American. That’s a different culture in itself. It’s different from Chinese culture. It’s different from American culture. And understanding that is empowering.”
The sense of empowerment that Pan discovered during her experiences overseas translated into social action on Goucher’s campus. Pan teamed up with another student to start Wreckage, a student club dedicated to breaking down the barriers between social classes and races. The club brings speakers to campus and holds intercultural events.
“I think the number-one thing that this college always reminds me of is that, yeah, you’re one person, but you can effect change,” says Pan. “You can make a big difference if you take what you learn and do something with it.”
After graduation, Pan hopes to teach in inner-city schools, preferably in New York City, where she still feels strong ties to the urban community.
“I’m privileged enough to come to a really good school like Goucher,” she says. “I should be able to contribute back to the inner city, because they were the ones who invested in me.”