Nicole Mathis MAT'96 is an Assistant Principal at Classical High School in Providence, RI. 
 

How do you look back on your time as a Brown MAT?

Brown University was the best thing that ever happened to me. Brown changed my life. The MAT program, particularly Professor Eileen Landay, helped lay a solid foundation around the importance of pedagogy for urban schools and urban school students, and how to understand the way that the arts can transform a curriculum and make it come alive. Also, showing, not telling, is so important for literacy and understanding, and for accommodating multiple learning styles. That undergirds my entire philosophy of instruction and the idea that Brown's MAT program really saw teaching as an art and a craft that you hone. I'm now able to infuse that idea of teaching as a craft that we build upon. 
 

How did you get into PPSD after graduation?

At the time, I thought Brown would be just a quick stop on the way to a Ph.D. program because I wanted to teach at the college level. I got a job at the Community College of Rhode Island, teaching English classes to multilingual learners, and fell in love. I was meeting students who were learning English, and they were doctors, lawyers, and professionals in their native countries, but they were starting all over again here. I'm surveying what college teaching could be like. But I said, you know what? I'm going to take up my friend on their offer and put my application in for subbing. At some point, I got a phone call and I could sub during the day because CCRI was at night. They started sending me to these different schools and I was like, oh, my gosh, who are these people? And I realized, “You know who those kids are? That I was meeting, these beautiful kids?” They were the children of the parents that I was teaching at night. And I kept making these connections. At the end of the summer, I got offered a full-time position in the Esek Hopkins English Department. I was on my own, trying to figure out what I wanted to do, but I was meeting these fascinating children in the morning and teaching their parents at night, and I said, “Oh, I like this”. It felt so good. I felt like I was giving back and learning so much.
 

How would you describe your role as Assistant Principal?

My role is fascinatingly amazing. I love it. I'm working side by side with an administrative team that’s my dream team. They’re super experienced admins with hearts of gold an eye toward ethics and an understanding of the context that we’re in. They have a lot of institutional history, which is very important to me because we're in the middle of a real intersection of public education. This could be the dismantling of it. So we're poised at a time to learn leadership and what it is. 
 

What’s something you’ve accomplished at Classical High?

During the 2021-2022 school year, we had a major issue with our transgender students feeling that they weren't being treated fairly by teachers, so I worked with them to create the Race and Equity Club. I supported the students' protests by forming the Race and Equity Club to empower them and give students a greater voice. The club supports their peers and tackles complicated issues. Yesterday at the meeting, we talked in focus groups about different scenarios of inequity that might happen so that we can provide professional development and training on cultural sensitivity and awareness to our current faculty. That’s in the works, and a bunch of student leaders and I are doing it. They’re already fired up and engaged and it’s great; they just need some support around them.

What advice do you have for educators?

A critical part of being an educator is understanding your own wellness, and how what we do personally and how we manage an ever-shifting world as leaders directly impacts our schools and our students. Taking care of oneself can serve as a model for students, teachers, and other admin in pretty mind-blowing ways. But to do that as a leader, you have to take the time to self-assess continually and to reposition yourself in your career, in your personal life, and in your public life, to take care of yourself. 
 

What’s next for you?

Brown University has grounded my career in this city. I’m a Rhode Island girl now. I’m committed to the city. I’m not going to the suburbs, I’m not leaving, I’m here. Despite the challenges of the current state takeover, I'm committed to staying. I’m retiring here, which was supposed to be next year, but I don’t think I’m quite ready. Next year, it’ll be 28 years in the district and it was my original plan to retire at 28 years. But the MAT program at Brown has made a lifetime of service to the city of Providence real for me and it’s the best.