A teacher’s new track

How one grad found new purpose at CSUB

By California State University, Bakersfield

May 5^th, 2020

Katie Cornford was on the track to becoming a professor, finalizing her master’s degree and working towards a Ph.D in political science at UCLA, when she had a health scare that changed the trajectory of her life.

Cornford started getting very sick, but couldn’t explain the symptoms and doctors couldn’t quite figure out what was wrong.

Initially, it looked like she had a terminal illness. In turn, she started re-evaluating her life and what time she thought she had left.

“I realized I didn’t enjoy a lot of the aspects of becoming a research professor,” said Cornford. “It was my relationships with students and teaching experiences that I found really rewarding and meaningful.”

“It really was the first time in my life that I wasn’t motivated and passionate,” Cornford added of the challenging times, as she figured out what was next and what she really wanted.

Her identity was centered around being a good student. As a daughter of two teachers, academia was all she had known.

After finishing her master’s degree, Cornford decided to walk away from UCLA. Once she received a proper diagnosis with two autoimmune diseases, the right medication and a little perspective, Cornford moved back to Bakersfield, where she was originally from, and would be closer to family.

Katie Cornford pictured with colleagues at Ridgeview High School.

Teaching success

It was then that she decided to go all in as a teacher, because it would be something meaningful. Friends of hers had gone through the teacher credential program at CSUB, so she decided to give it a try.

As she transitioned into CSUB’s teaching credential program, it gave her a chance to reprioritize her goals. Her main focus: to become a better teacher, not to be a perfect graduate student.

“Sometimes I was okay with being good enough, even if an assignment wasn’t perfect,” she said. “I would rather invest my time in becoming a healthy and effective teacher in the classroom.”

Cornford spent three semesters at CSUB in a cohort of 22 students in the Kern High Teacher Residency Program. Cornford joined the residency program, because she was drawn to the high degree of support and community that the cohort of resident teachers offered.

“We all wanted to help each other as teachers, as students and help each other as friends,” she said of her cohort in the program.

It also helped that they had many of the same professors for various classes, which added a lot of value. The professors got to know them, their situations and their teaching styles.

“They were able to challenge and support us in a more personalized way,” Cornford said.

“Katie is an incredibly brilliant, thoughtful young woman who has so much to offer the world. Her future students are incredibly lucky to have her and her commitment to engaging students in civically focused literacies will benefit the broader community of Bakersfield. It was truly a privilege to work with her on this journey,” said Dr. Alice Hays, assistant professor in the Department of Teacher Education.

Cornford also joined the Kern High Teacher Residency Program, because she was drawn to the high degree of support and community that the cohort of resident teachers offered.

During that time, Cornford was able to spend a year teaching world history alongside her mentor at Ridgeview High School, Marc Donez.

Although she was nervous prior to starting the school year, after her first week of teaching, she knew that the classroom was where she was supposed to be.

Cornford was transparent with her students from the beginning about being a resident teacher and that she was still learning. She also worked to give them a colorful and interesting experience, with thought-provoking questions, rather than the experience of a stereotypical history class that memorized names and dates.

She recognizes that she still made mistakes and there were lesson plans that could have been better, but she learned from those and got better as the year went on, and built strong relationships with the students along the way.

“They invested in me as their teacher, as much as I invested in them as my students,” Cornford said.

Valuable lessons

Throughout her time at CSUB, one of the most valuable lessons she learned was that while they may be teachers of content, more than that, they are teachers of people.

Rather than having students walk away from class having learned dates on a timeline, it’s important that they are civically-minded and ask themselves harder questions about race, gender and other social justice issues and current events.

“It was more important to talk about the thinking process about inequality of individual rights, why leaders should have checks on power – more about civic mindedness than just having them memorize things,” Cornford said.

That was a perspective that was approached and promoted by the professors at CSUB.

For those who might have a similar story of taking the longer path to finding what they love, she has a bit of advice. It can be summed up in two questions: What is in your power to change? What do you really care about, and does the way that you spend your time reflect what you care about?

“I think we can always make small adjustments in the way we spend our time to reflect on what we care about,” she said. “For me, I care more about being a good teacher in the classroom than receiving perfect scores on assignments. I made an adjustment where I spent more time lesson planning, resting and investing in my classroom.”

As Cornford completes her last days of classes, she is excited for the next chapter.

“Finishing this credential, graduating and having that piece of paper that allows me to have my own classroom is so exciting,” she said.

Cornford has accepted a teaching position at Highland High School in Bakersfield, where she will teach history after graduation. She is thrilled and “itching for her own classroom.”

“It’s like being able to graduate from CSUB is giving me that opportunity to have my own classroom, to be a teacher in full and to be able to realize that goal.”