“You have to know going into a teaching career, especially in the city, that this is a commitment, both inside and outside of the classroom,” she says. “And  that’s something I think a lot of teachers don’t prepare for.”

Last May, she accompanied her sixth-graders to NorthBay, an environmental education center that runs a special program for sixth-grade students across Maryland during the school year. In the summer months, NorthBay is an adventure-filled and character-building summer camp for boys and girls ages 7–16.

For a whole week Taylor chaperoned her students and helped the NorthBay staff understand the rough lives many of those students face. In turn, she got a better understanding of how NorthBay’s methods can help her students.

Lasting, long-term effect
“NorthBay has a long-term effect,” Taylor says. “It’s like teachers—kids don’t appreciate them until later.” In her classes, Taylor often faces obstacles in getting her students’ attention—like not having enough seats so they have to sit on the floor. “So I try to relate to them with the lessons,” she says, which is  what NorthBay does too. “NorthBay was able to relate filters [positive influences] in their lives to clams, and because of that, the students wanted to learn about the clams.”

Taylor, along with Rebecca Bell, environmental education specialist for the Maryland Department of Education, believe NorthBay’s special school year  program is just what those students need. “It gets them off their block and triggers curiosity in their world. They need to know there is a bigger world out there,”

Bell says. “For the school year program, NorthBay is saying, ‘We want you,’ and that’s something no other program has done for inner-city kids. NorthBay is one of a kind, and I see it as a model for ways to teach.”

A rare find
Though NorthBay may be one of a kind, Bell says it benefits from the rare teachers like Taylor, who believe not only in the program but also in the kids.