Growing up in the shadow of a low-performing school in Topeka, Kansas, Charity McCracken, BS’16, was told time and again she should not hope for more. But that didn’t stop her from wanting to become a teacher.
Her school didn’t offer AP classes so she took them online. She performed in the choir and the drama club, made the National Honor Society, and graduated valedictorian with a perfect 4.0 grade point average.
“My goal was always to become a kindergarten teacher, to be the first person to inspire children toward being successful in school,” she said.
Such hard work and courage could only lead to more good things. McCracken’s college dreams became a reality when she was selected to be a Patterson Scholar at Peabody, which includes a partial scholarship.
Funded by best-selling author James Patterson, the program supports aspiring elementary and secondary education majors. In fact, McCracken is a member of the first cohort to have spent all four years as a Patterson Scholar at Peabody and was among 19 Patterson Scholars at Peabody in the 2015–16 academic year.
“The Patterson Scholars program helped channel Charity’s potential, allowing her to engage fully as a student and teacher candidate at Vanderbilt,” said Catherine McTamaney, director of undergraduate studies and senior lecturer in the Department of Teaching and Learning. “It allowed her to take advantage of a wealth of academic and extracurricular experiences, to embrace her love of the arts, to be challenged intellectually, and to mature on pace, in ways she may not have been able to without the support.”
“I hope to encourage the aspirations and the voice of the next generation of learners in the same way I have been encouraged.”
—Charity McCracken
At Peabody, McCracken found acknowledgment and support for her aptitude and was pushed to achieve her full potential. Her professors and classmates formed a safety net that allowed her to be herself and embrace her beginnings while pursuing a career that once seemed impossible. Spurred by her time student teaching in Metro Nashville Public Schools, McCracken has chosen to focus her career on some of the nation’s most vulnerable students—young English language learners.
“They have such incredible experiences to share, and I want to be there when they learn to share them,” McCracken said. “As a teacher, I hope to encourage the aspirations and the voice of the next generation of learners in the same way I have been encouraged.”
During her first year at Peabody, McCracken wrote a poem for a class assignment that illustrates the powerful effect of those who have invested in her journey to become a teacher. She wrote: