One year ago today, Talmage White was attending English classes at the University of Utah. These days, he’s the one giving lectures. After graduating last summer, White took a leap of faith, accepting a high school English teaching job in New York City.
“I think there’s some good resources at the U to help students with what they want to do next. But I didn’t really utilize those resources,” said White, discussing his initial job search.
“Whatever phase of our system we’re into, I’ll say it’s late stage capitalism, we’ll find jobs that say, ‘Starting pay is pretty minimum, but you need three to five years of work experience,’ and I’m like, ‘Dude, I don’t even know like where to work,’ especially as an English major.”
After being courted by several teaching job offers on the Handshake app—a partner of the University of Utah—White decided to accept an offer from Success Academy, a free public charter school in Manhattan with a lottery-based admission system.
“It’s been seven months, I think, that I’ve taught AP English Lang to students in Midtown, in Manhattan. It’s been an awesome experience. On one hand, this is what life is like outside of college. I’m kind of getting hit by the real world, seeing how organizations and hierarchies work,” said White. “On another hand, it’s really enriching trying to help students learn and grow; to try to pass off some of my knowledge with the English language and English literature.”
At Success Academy, White ensures that his students, who are often left behind by the public school system, have everything they need to succeed in his classroom.
“At a lot of these public schools, there will be a teacher in front of a room talking and ten of the students will just not be present whatsoever,” He explained. “There will be ten students who fail, and the teacher doesn’t really care or do anything. They kind of leave them behind, and it sets these kids up for failure.”
When building his classroom culture, White is committed to avoiding these pitfalls. “To me, it’s really about building a relationship with the kids, and having a parent-teacher relationship too. Holding them accountable and finding ways to engage each student in learning,” he explained. “I think that each student needs something slightly different. Some are visual learners, some are audible learners, and I figure out what works for the group.”
It’s also an exercise in public speaking. “Learning how to manage a classroom—or manage a room in general—with public speaking is a whole different, interesting ball game,” he said. “To make sure everyone is on the same page, and that they all all have the same goal; it’s kind of hard to pinpoint. But I think that experience can be a really invigorating and inspiring thing to do.”
At work, Talmage has been getting used to being called ‘Mr. White’ by his students. “It’s so weird, man. You know, Mr. White is my dad. I’m 22.” White reflected on adopting the namesake. “It’s like an alter ego.” He considers ‘Mr. White’ to be “a metaphor for becoming an adult outside of college.”
“First of all, it just makes me feel closer to my favorite show, Breaking Bad. Second of all, I think that it’s kind of cool. I guess it’s a good step to becoming an adult. Because I love literature and I’m an English major, I think everyone has some sort of call to adventure. I think that taking that can lead you in a cool new direction. In many ways, I think this is kind of my call.”
Accepting this call was a risk that paid off for Mr. White. Taking calculated risks is part of his personal philosophy. “One of the things in my life that has led to my own growth has been to be bold and to have some calculated risk taking, too. I don’t think that’s the case for everyone, but I would say I encourage people to do things that scare them.”
White is a true renaissance man. In addition to his job as a teacher, Mr. White is studying for the LSAT, taking acting classes, and writing music. You can hear more from him on Spotify and Apple Music under his stage name, Talmage White.
