Dennis Rankin: "We Cannot Find This Anywhere Else"

Whether novice or veteran, every teacher experiences challenging interactions with parents. Dennis Rankin, a graduate of the 17th cohort of ACE Teaching Fellows, is no different. For Dennis, though, one particularly stressful interaction led to a fuller appreciation of what it means to teach in Catholic schools.

“It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.” - Sherlock Holmes

Though perhaps relatively few use seemingly minute details to solve major crime cases like Sherlock Holmes, data and its analysis enable people to make informed decisions in any field today—and education is no different. Nobody knows this better than Chris Broughton, who has spent the bulk of his professional life using data to find key intervention opportunities that change the trajectory of students’ lives. Chris, currently the Executive Director at Bottom Line in Chicago, graduated from the 11th cohort of ACE Teaching Fellows and taught middle school in Oklahoma City. He has learned through years of data-work that it is truly not the numbers that matter, but the people behind those numbers.

Katie Schenkel, in her second year of teaching as an ACE Teaching Fellow at Our Lady of Prompt Succor in New Orleans, had her seventh grade class bring in objects, news articles, or stories about science happening in their lives. Katie had no idea how important this activity would be for one of her students, who had never previously displayed much interest in science class. This student brought in a picture of herself sitting next to her pet tortoise.

April Adalim, one of ACE Teaching Fellows’ newest graduates, will be breaking ground this spring. Having committed to a third year of teaching middle school English Language Arts at St. Catherine in Tulsa, Oklahoma—the site of her ACE placement—April will be joining the community of St. Catherine in constructing a playground three years in the making. 

Mike McShane, a member of the 14th cohort of ACE Teaching Fellows, never had a “life-plan” per se, nor did he adhere to artificially imposed one-, five- and ten-year goals. Mike’s life seems to instead have followed a series of twists and turns that some would call luck, others Providence. In an age of micromanaging and hyper-planning, Mike takes the opportunities that present themselves at life’s pivotal moments and allows these experiences to form and prepare him for whatever comes next.