Adding Up the Pieces: Catching Up with Nicole Edsall

When she graduated from Hillbrook in 2012, Nicole Edsall (Class of ‘12) didn’t know she wanted to be a teacher yet – she just knew how much she had enjoyed having the trust of her teachers at Hillbrook. “I felt like there were always moments when my Hillbrook teachers were giving me a little bit of responsibility,” she said. A series of snapshot memories from her Hillbrook years, seemingly disconnected, bring the larger picture of her future pathway into focus: Nicole as a second-grader, stepping up to ring the recess bell to announce the beginning of a play; Nicole as a seventh-grader running across campus, overjoyed to meet her Hillbrook Buddies; later, college-aged Nicole joining a rugby club team at Stanford despite never having played before – and immediately moving into a de facto coaching role by her second year. “I think that teachers saw what I enjoyed, or saw the work that I put in and then tried to find outlets for it. They gave us so much support – and put so much responsibility on the kids in the best way possible. Kids don’t often get to have a lot of responsibility, because a lot of things are decided for us. Not at Hillbrook.”

Nicole’s journey toward education came together in pieces and parts over the years of trying, doing, learning, and living out her favorite of Hillbrook’s Core Value: taking risks. She arrived at Stanford as a freshman with more possibilities than plans in mind: “I didn’t really know what I wanted to do – I went in thinking I was going to study computer science or engineering, something familiar – my dad is an engineer,” she said. The summer after her sophomore year, finding herself without an internship and in need of a new opportunity, Nicole took on a teaching fellowship at Breakthrough Silicon Valley on her mother’s suggestion – and that’s when the final piece finally clicked into place. “At Breakthrough, I saw the impact that I [could make] as a teacher,” she said. “It was the first time I could actually clearly see myself doing something. With other professions, it’s a little more amorphous – you might send and answer some emails, and then something happens, a product is made or a project launches. But teaching felt completely different. The amount of impact that I would have was different.” 

Nicole’s first class at Breakthrough was a group of 8th grade math students, which she quickly found was a fun and (mostly) forgiving place to make her first foray into teaching. “I got two weeks of training, and then we just jumped into it – I don’t know if I really felt prepared, but then again, I don’t know if anything fully prepares you for teaching!” she said. “I remember the first class on my first day – I decided we were going to play a name game activity. And I was like, okay, we’re going to toss around this ball! And all the kids broke out laughing. I was like, okay, now what do I do?!” 

The six weeks she spent at the front of the classroom gave Nicole her first real taste of teaching, both the triumphs and challenges. “I went in straight from college, so I had completely forgotten what it was like to be in middle school. I went in thinking I was going to put together a PowerPoint presentation, talk while they took notes, and then they were going to get it. But that was not the case at all. Middle schoolers haven’t learned how to take notes yet! The ultimate goal became helping them figure out how to reach this new level of responsibility. It was hard, but it was so rewarding to figure out which activities really sparked their attention and really got them interested in the math that we were learning.”

While math was always a relatively easy subject, Nicole does recall a few key experiences that sparked her desire to make it the focus of her teaching career – and to teach math in a way that meets students where they are, with a classroom experience that welcomes and nurtures a variety of skill levels. After spending her fifth grade year living abroad with her family, Nicole discovered she was behind the curve for her return to Hillbrook – she remembers driving around the European countryside the summer before middle school, sitting in the back of the car with a Hillbrook math textbook, immersed in the problems on the page as Italy and France and Spain went by in a blur outside the car window. In 7th grade, finding herself needing extra help again, she received one-on-one tutoring from former Hillbrook math teacher Awais Ahsan, an experience that shaped her understanding of math as concept-building. “If I had struggled with math all throughout Hillbrook and then still didn’t understand it in high school, I would’ve had a very different experience,” she said. “That early intervention was extremely important – it’s one of the reasons why I might want to teach middle school.” Her key word here is might – she’s still figuring out where her talents and passions will lead her. “My love of math was sparked in seventh grade,” she says. “If I do wind up teaching middle school, it’s because I’d have an opportunity to get in earlier to help students actually like math, to be interested in it and understand it. In high school it’s not too late, but I think it’s definitely much harder to reach those kids that are already behind.Their earlier experiences get compounded.”

No matter what grade she teaches, her ideal classroom already has taken shape beautifully in her mind’s eye, drawing inspiration from her own love of learning and her fellow students at Vanderbilt University. “I’m the only person who’s doing math in my program – I’m surrounded by a lot of future English and history teachers. They all talk about having a reading corner with soft seating and a little library. As someone who loves to read, I loved that idea! It really cemented for me that I want to have that type of environment in my math classroom – a big rug with some bean bags and space for students to sit on the ground on a comfy surface, and desks or tables are in small groups so that there’s a lot of group work. I really want to have a lot of activities, and for students to get their hands dirty, kind of like a science lab type feel – doing the work together to understand the concepts. 

“Obviously there’s going to be moments where I’m going to have to teach them at the front of the classroom, but I don’t want that to be the majority of time. The main picture that I have is a lot of chatter coming from the students as they’re learning math together. I want to let them drive the classroom as much as possible.”

The location of her future classroom is somewhere around the bend, but Nicole knows one thing: her path is leading her towards public education. “I’ve kind of always been inclined towards teaching public school,” she said. “I’ve had these amazing experiences [in my own schooling], and I’ve had the support of my parents and my teachers and the community around me. It’s not that teaching private school means I’m wasting that privilege – I just know it would be better served to give back.” Her studies at Vanderbilt and classroom observations have given her even further insight into both the challenges – and possibilities – set before public school classroom teachers. “In my program at Vanderbilt, we talk a lot about showing support and unconditional love to the kids – like taking time to call home with positive experiences, and celebrating the good things that the students are doing in the classroom. We talk about providing a positive context for teacher connections, rather than just bad grades and missing homework.” She envisions a school where teachers have time to celebrate the good moments, making positive recognition an organic part of the school experience – something she remembers clearly from her earliest days at Hillbrook.

The pandemic was a notoriously challenging time for educators, but it only further strengthened Nicole’s resolve, that puzzle-piece of a moment she felt in the Breakthrough classroom just a few short summers before. “I didn’t doubt my decision at any point. In fact, I applied to Vanderbilt in December 2020, so I knew that I was going to stick with it!” she said. “I think it made me hopeful, whether it’s founded or not, that at some point teachers will be valued more in society. It made me hopeful that people would realize just how much teachers do.” The idea of impact, of making a difference, that she discovered in her first classroom experience continued to add weight and meaning to her chosen career. “I saw the impact that the teachers were having on the students [during the pandemic], and how much passion and love the teachers have for their career and for the students. I was talking with a couple of friends recently, and two of them were talking about career shifts, and looking for jobs more in line with their morals. And I realized that I’m never going to have to worry about that.”

While the world has changed since Nicole’s 8th grade graduation, her outlook has been strengthened by her experiences – and her advice to her 8th grade self is the same as her advice to herself now. “Keep saying YES to things,” she said. “There are a lot of good experiences out there, and saying “yes,” putting yourself out of your comfort zone, taking risks, is super helpful in general – and it keeps your life interesting. It keeps you interesting to yourself.”