When prospective teachers arrive to the campus of the Atlanta Speech School to initially meet with Executive Director Comer Yates, the conversation often begins with a simple ask: “Tell me about a student who changed your life.”
The answers of teachers who join the Speech School faculty often center on a child they could not yet reach. They reveal a story of someone the teacher feels they let down, often because the teacher didn’t yet know enough or possess the training and more necessary skills at the time. These moments linger in teachers’ minds, clarifying purpose and becoming a promise.
Teachers are drawn to the Speech School, seeking a place where they can live out that promise, led by their own intrinsic motivation. This motivation to learn more is not only honored, but facilitated, given structure, support, and the opportunity to grow.
Expanding the Mission
Now in its 88th year, the Atlanta Speech School began as a free school for children who were deaf and hard of hearing, at a time when few educational options existed. The founding commitment remains in practice today, which means that no student in need of services is turned away because of a family’s financial circumstances.
On campus, programs serve children ages two through elementary grades whose neurobiological differences can affect how they develop language and learn to read: the Wardlaw School is designed to support children with dyslexia; the Katherine Hamm Center supports children who are deaf and hard of hearing; and Stepping Stones is designed for children with speech and language delays. The Anne & Jim Kenan Preschool brings children together in an inclusive environment, creating opportunities for shared learning and community with the other preschool classes.
Across all programs, the goal is the same: to build each child’s deep reading brain – that is, the ability not only to decode text, but to understand, question, and think critically and to develop the self-determination that allows children to become who they are meant to be.
To reach this common outcome across these different programs, Speech School teachers draw on the sciences of early brain development, language acquisition, and literacy. This work is built on a foundation of strong relationships and a deep respect for each child. Students are never told to be quiet – rather, they are taught to listen, encouraged to express themselves, and led to engage fully in their learning.
Making an Impact Beyond the Classroom
Over time, the Speech School has built its teaching community with teacher autonomy in mind. In the Wardlaw School for elementary-aged children with dyslexia and the three preschools, Atlanta Speech School seeks educators who are driven by the work itself and who reflect upon, refine, and continuously deepen their practice in service of children. They understand the responsibility they carry in shaping a child’s trajectory and are committed to doing that work better each day.
What distinguishes the Speech School is that this promise doesn’t stop at any single classroom. As the nation’s most comprehensive center for language and literacy, which serves as a teaching hospital for education, the Speech School connects daily practice to a broader movement toward its vision, literacy and justice for all.
Through the School’s Rollins Center for Language & Literacy and Cox Campus (a free online learning platform), what is learned with each child on campus is shared with more than 400,000 educators across all 50 states and 138 countries.
This means that the daily work of teaching becomes part of a broader effort to transform how children are taught to read. For many educators, it is this opportunity to extend the promise they made to one child to many that draws them to the school.
Meaning Matters for Faculty
SAIS research indicates that community & culture, students, and colleagues & relationships play an important role for teachers in the decision to remain with a school community. At the Speech School, teachers find purpose in helping children with differences beat the odds against literacy, providing the opportunity for children to determine their own future and make the most difference in the lives of others.
Source: SAIS Motivation and Engagement Survey
Through the Rollins Center, the Speech School seeks to change those odds more broadly for every child, particularly in breaking the cycle of illiteracy for children whose families have faced generationally denied access to educational and economic opportunity. By partnering with preeminent national experts, educators, and school systems, and by making professional learning widely accessible through Cox Campus, the school extends what is learned on its campus to classrooms far beyond.
This means that what happens in individual classrooms does not stay there – it informs a larger effort to advance outcomes for millions more children. For teachers at the Speech School, that connection matters.
Educators who enter the profession to make a difference are not bound by a single classroom. Instead, Speech School faculty members have the opportunity to extend their impact to children across the globe, while deepening their expertise in service of the child in front of them.
Teachers work alongside colleagues who share a commitment to bring the greatest possible precision and fidelity of the science to each child they serve. These teachers reflect together, test ideas, and contribute to a growing body of knowledge about language and literacy. They can access Cox Campus and the experts who contribute to its content, and they can influence the content to impact others.
The Atlanta Speech School continues to organize its work around a simple idea: when teachers are trusted to pursue their purpose, supported in deepening their knowledge, and given the opportunity to extend their impact, they do more than teach. They fulfill a promise, and, in doing so, they change what we should require of ourselves for children everywhere.
Thank you to Atlanta Speech School Director of Communications Catherine Sabonis for contributions to this article.
