Rhonda Prentice grew up in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and when she was finished with school she became a teacher. But that career was, at first, short-lived.
“It was a long journey,” Prentice says. “I moved to the United States in 1980. I joined the military in 1983. I came out of the military in 1988 or ‘89. Then I had my son. He’s autistic, and he’s the person who brought me back into teaching.”
Prentice’s son was diagnosed with autism at age 2, and didn’t start speaking until he was four years old. She enrolled him in a Northeastern University program that helped him develop his skills, and Prentice also worked with her son.
“That’s what brought me into education, I wanted to learn how to take care of my son.”
One day, Prentice adds, “he just started speaking, and he never went back.”
Prentice’s advocacy for her son continued in elementary school, where he was in a special program. But Prentice says she was told her son would never be able to do math. And although her son was in a special program, he was bullied by other students.
Prentice filed a complaint against the school, and she found a better school “that loved him, that supported him, that stood by him. One of the teachers called herself his second mother, and that school supported him until he graduated.”
This school taught Prentice how to be a stronger parent and a stronger advocate for her son.
Today, Prentice is a teacher at Horizons for Homeless Children. She’s a member of Strategies for Children’s Advocacy Network, and she’s interested in using storytelling to bring about change for families.
A passion for teaching
Ask Prentice about her work as a teacher, and her answer makes the sun shine brighter.
“Oh my goodness, those little people. They are my heart and my soul,” she says.
Prentice says that as a teacher, one of her most important tools is observation. She watches children and listens so she can understand their needs.
“During the day, I’m observing children. I’m talking to them. I care about what’s inside them, how they’re playing, and why they are playing the way they are. I want to know what hurts their feelings, and how they are using language.
“I want to know if children can have a conversation with me, if they can talk in sentences. If I tell Susan that I like her dress, can Johnny wait for me to finish talking to Susan so I can talk to him? I want to hear the details about what they’re doing, and then when Johnny is talking, I want to see if Susan can jump in and join the conversation.”
Prentice says books are a useful tool for engaging children in conversation. It’s not just reading the book, it’s teaching kids about books—the covers and spines, and that books are read from left to right. It’s also crucial to ask kids what they think of what’s going on in the book.
“Instead of just reading the words, I ask them about the pictures because the pictures help kids understand on their own what’s happening in the book.”
Learning in new spaces
Although she’s a teacher, Prentice also sees herself as a learner, and she’s grateful to colleagues whom she has learned from.
“Eva Marks was awesome because she got me into a lot of spaces that I learned from,” Prentice says of Marks, an Advocacy Network alumni from cohort 3 and a former employee of Horizons for Homeless Children. It was Marks who encouraged Prentice to join the Advocacy Network..
“I’ve learned a lot from the Advocacy Network. I’m opening up like a flower.” Prentice says. “Before I wasn’t going to talk to anybody. Now I’m getting better. I’m learning new ways of connecting with people and asking questions.”
Another important experience, Prentice says, was visiting the State House with Strategies for Children’s staff, interns, and policy fellows.
“It was very helpful to go to the State House because I’ve never seen the State House as my house. But the State House has the history about how far we’ve come, about the men and women who fought for us, who used their voices to help us get to where we are.
“And to think that we are standing on all these people’s shoulders to make this a better place and a better world.”
Prentice particularly enjoyed meeting with State Senator Sal DiDomenico and his Chief of Staff Christie Getto Young, who talked about how to get a job at the State House, something Prentice says she wants to help other “Black and brown people do.”
Advocacy in action
Prentice is enrolled in UMass Boston’s Gender, Leadership & Public Policy Certificate program. As part of her internship, she’s learning about storytelling from her involvement with the Vital Villages Network.
Specifically, Prentice wants to use storytelling to educate the parents at Horizons for Homeless Children about the toll of headaches.
“We work with a lot of homeless families and when I look at them, I know they go through trauma, and trauma sometimes causes headaches because there’s so much stress in their lives. There are things that they can’t say out loud that they keep in their heads, and that can cause headaches.”
Prentice is also interested in using her storytelling skills to start a blog.
We asked Prentice what policymakers should know about early educators’ work, and she said, “We need better pay because we are not getting paid enough for the work we do.”
What advice does Prentice have for early educators who want to do more advocacy?
“You have to know yourself. You can’t advocate for other people if you don’t know who you are. You also need to know the laws so you can understand how to advocate. You need to recognize families as individuals. And when you’re advocating for parents, give them a voice, let them talk. You can back them up, but let them use their voice to say what they need. Don’t be the voice for them, teach them to stand up and talk for themselves.”
Prentice’s vision for the future? Parents and children who are blooming. Parents would have jobs and respect and their children would be blossoming and so curious that teachers would have to learn more to be able to engage parents and teach children.
As Prentice says, “Can you imagine that?”