Alliance for Catholic Education
ACE Teaching Fellows Sean Kelley and Lydia Miller have been selected as Fulbright finalists and will travel to Europe to apply the skills developed through ACE in classrooms abroad.
The honorees, who graduated with Master’s in Education degrees from Notre Dame as part of the ACE 31 cohort earlier this month, were awarded English teaching assistantships through the Fulbright U.S. Student Program. The fully funded opportunities support English teachers in local communities worldwide, wherever Fulbright winners are assigned.
Kelley will be placed in a classroom for college-age English-language learners in Luxembourg for the 26-27 academic year; Miller will work with middle and high school students in Spain.
Sean Kelley, who completed two years teaching fourth grade at St. Vincent de Paul Catholic School in Phoenix in May, said the “voluntary displacement” inherent to the ACE experience has uniquely prepared him for his next year of service through Fulbright.
“I'm really excited about that sort of feeling you get in the first few weeks of ACE, where you're like, ‘I'm uncomfortable,’” he said.
And while Kelley acknowledges that his proficiency in French will be an asset in Luxembourg, he anticipates his time spent teaching students through ACE in Arizona will be most helpful in his new role.
“I’m used to leading my own classroom,” Kelley said of his time teaching fourth grade at St. Vincent de Paul Catholic School in Phoenix. “So I’m coming in with that comfort level, which is rare, I believe, in Fulbright.”
Fellowship recipient Lydia Miller was a graduate of the University of Michigan before teaching middle school science through ACE in Indianapolis. She agreed that the real-world experience ACE offers in “embracing displacement” has uniquely prepared her to build community in an unfamiliar place—a skill she anticipates will be invaluable in Pontevedra, a community in the Galicia region of Spain.
“Looking at moving to a new country, city, job, and community, I'm not sure I could be facing a bigger displacement than I am in this upcoming journey,” Miller said. “Fortunately, having the practice of discovering what routines, connections, and hobbies I need to prioritize to feel the most ‘me’ in my new space will make it much easier to fully focus on the community engagement emphasized by the Fulbright program.”
As an ACE teacher at St. Michael-St. Gabriel the Archangel Elementary School, Miller worked with a predominantly Latinx student demographic. She credits her coursework in Supporting English Language Learners through the program with empowering her to incorporate specific practices within her science classroom to improve students’ language acquisition.
“While I continued to integrate these practices within my classroom, as their science teacher, this couldn't be my main priority,” she recalled. “It did, however, inspire me to apply for this Fulbright English teaching assistant position where that will now be my primary job.”
Miller said she looks forward to her Fulbright experience in part for the opportunity it will afford her to develop her own Spanish language abilities, eventually allowing her to better assist English language learners in schools in the United States.
Kati Macaluso, Beeson Family ACE Senior Director of Catholic Teacher Formation, celebrated this year’s Fulbright honorees as living fully into the spirit of the ACE Teaching Fellows program.
“When we say, ‘See where ACE takes you,’ we really do mean anywhere,” Macaluso said. “It’s a joy to see Lydia and Sean embarking on another year of service through the Fulbright program, where they’ll be able to build on the skills they developed in their ACE classrooms the last two years.”
Since 2014, 24 ACE Teaching Fellows have been named Fulbright finalists.