"At first it was a nightmare — a nightmare. But we’re getting the hang of it. It’s getting better. We have a routine now."
Jennifer Hedrington, a member of the Malden Education Association, was speaking not just as a seventh-grade math teacher at the Ferryway School, but also as the mother of two sons — 8-year-old Isaiah and 10-year-old Ethan — with whom she and her husband, Jamaal, have been meeting the technological and logistical challenges of remote teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In Lancaster, where Hedrington was born and where she and her family live, internet connectivity isn’t always a sure thing.
Like many of her colleagues throughout Massachusetts, Hedrington had been teaching remotely since last March when she spoke to MTA Today — and she was still adapting to this highly unusual school year.
But dealing with the unexpected is one of Hedrington’s many strengths. In October, when she was named the 2021 Massachusetts Teacher of the Year, the panel that selected her noted that Hedrington’s core commitment to always center her work around the student-teacher relationship had captured their attention.
Takeru Nagayoshi, the 2020 Massachusetts Teacher of the Year, was a member of the panel. Nagayoshi said that Hedrington "stood out because she was very relationship-oriented in her leadership."
"Every vision, call to action, or reasoning behind her leadership decisions or education philosophy was grounded in an anecdote that centered her students first and foremost," he added.
The three finalists, all women of color, "brought a passion to change the profession for their students from their unique perspectives as women of color," Nagayoshi said. "She had a contagious enthusiasm for the profession, but also a vulnerability that resonated with me as a teacher struggling through and looking for inspiration in a time of pandemic."
Hedrington’s early years undoubtedly provided her with some of the skills she developed to master teaching in an uncertain world. During her childhood, Hedrington moved with her parents, both missionaries, to Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) and Rwanda, and then to Florida and Michigan, before returning to Massachusetts. In those years, Hedrington said, "There wasn’t always a school that I could go to." As a result, she was sent to live with a great aunt and uncle back in the U.S. while her parents continued their work.
The family was back together by the time Hedrington was in seventh grade. She entered a private school but then transferred to the public schools. In ninth grade she began going to Nashoba Regional High School, where she excelled academically. She finished in three years.
‘Life isn’t black and white, whether we’re talking about race, gender, religion or politics. So I acknowledge that in my teaching. I see and validate all the colors that are in front of me. And I believe that when you approach students’ different colors through the lenses of love, barriers can be broken and a relationship can be formed, which allows information and education to be a little easier to digest.’
— Teacher Jennifer Hedrington
The swift passage through high school wasn’t fueled by boundless confidence, however.
"At Nashoba, I was one of a handful of Black students," Hedrington recalled. "I used to sit in the front of the bus every day by myself. No one saw me — no one except for the school bus driver. She was the only one who saw me. I remember that at graduation, the bus driver gave me a card. And I just started crying. …
"I felt invisible when I was a kid," she said. "And as teachers, we have the power of making people feel invisible."
Those experiences have shaped Hedrington’s philosophy.
"I teach in color through the lenses of love," she said, breaking that line down: "Life isn’t black and white, whether we’re talking about race, gender, religion or politics. So I acknowledge that in my teaching. I see and validate all the colors that are in front of me. And I believe that when you approach students’ different colors through the lenses of love, barriers can be broken and a relationship can be formed, which allows information and education to be a little easier to digest."
After graduating from Atlantic Union College with a degree in psychology, Hedrington headed immediately to the Massachusetts School of Law, where she earned her law degree.
In need of employment during her studies, she noticed an opening at SeaCoast, a public high school in Revere geared to students for whom traditional schools are not a good fit.
Hedrington left SeaCoast two years later, when her Massachusetts Tests for Educator Licensure results missed the school’s hiring deadline. But by that time, Hedrington said, "I decided that I definitely wanted to be the teacher that I needed when I was a kid — but never had."
After a few years of teaching in Houston and Baltimore, she saw an ad for the position in Malden. Hedrington went in for the interview, she said, "and that was that."
She hasn’t moved since and is now in her 11th year in the Malden P ublic Schools.
Deb Gesualdo, president of the Malden Education Association, said that Hedrington "really walks her talk."
Hedrington "cares deeply about students and the people around her," Gesualdo said. "And she just continues to push for inclusion and equity in our schools — not just the recognition of diversity."
Educating the whole student is essential to Hedrington.
Despite not being a big fan of social media, she often uses it to converse with students. "That is how they get hold of me," she said.
Through social media, she watches how students relate to one another.
She said that especially in the current atmosphere of racial hostility, political turbulence and economic crisis brought on by the pandemic, she sees among her students "the divisions" that can develop among young people — "and they start early."
As an example, she pointed to exchanges that occurred during the presidential election.
"Some students wrote, ‘If you don’t believe Black Lives Matter, we can’t be friends,’" Hedrington said. "Others wrote, ‘If you don’t believe Blue Lives Matter, we can’t be friends.’"
"That bothered me," she said. "So today in class, I did not teach math. Instead, we had a heart-to-heart talk about how not to repeat the mistakes that we adults have made — and how we can learn to agree to disagree — to learn to talk, you know? "It’s about educating the entire child, who will then be an adult," she added. "And how many adults are going to remember the Pythagorean theorem?"
To view a video of 2021 Massachusetts Teacher of the Year Jennifer Hedrington, please go to massteacher.org/2021teacherofyear.
