Meet Malachi Sheppard

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In elementary school, Malachi Sheppard received poor conduct grades for joking around and distracting his friends.  At the start of the following school year, Malachi’s mother wrote his new teacher a letter. “Essentially it said, ‘He has a lot of energy, but if you listen to him, he knows what he’s talking about. If he gets bored, challenge him,’” Sheppard, now 25 recalls.

Sheppard, a Baltimore City resident, knows the importance of having a champion in the classroom.  “I’ve seen a lot of kids not have that kind of advocate to speak on what type of learner and person they are.” This desire to lift up students’ strengths was a large part of what drew him to enroll as an early childhood education graduate student at University of Maryland Baltimore County, where he has one more semester before earning his certification to teach pre-Kindergarten through Grade 3.

Becoming a teacher was not Malachi’s first career plan upon his graduation from Towson University in 2019.  With an internship at Blue Cross Blue Shield under his belt, he landed a job as a healthcare recruiter and didn’t find the work fulfilling. Upon reflection, he thinks that the lack of direct service to others played a role. “I dove within myself to figure out what it was that brought me joy,” and he had a strong feeling that the answer might be waiting for him in elementary school.

Sheppard’s first work experience had actually been with young children when he was just a teenager himself.  At North Point High School in Waldorf, his vocational pathway afforded him college classes in early childhood education as well as hands-on experience in the school’s daycare. The program served him well even years later, as he only managed to answer a few questions in his interview to become a substitute teacher with Baltimore County before the interviewer said, “You’re coming with me.”

Sheppard felt at home right away at Baltimore Highlands Elementary, where the high-energy principal assigned him to classrooms all over the building in his initial weeks as a floating substitute.  For the first time in many months, things were falling into place, and Malachi began applying to graduate school programs for the fall.  There was just one problem: it was late February, 2020.  As soon as Sheppard found himself in a rhythm at Baltimore Highlands, the world shut down due to the global pandemic.  And teaching became completely virtual.

Undeterred, Sheppard pivoted to remote learning more easily than many veteran teachers.  With an aptitude for technology from a young age, he found himself assisting colleagues with online platforms as they began connecting with students via Google Meet and Zoom.  When a third grade teacher retired due to the daunting realities of this new instructional space, Mr. Sheppard became a long term substitute for the class.

How does a novice educator keep a class of 8-year-olds engaged through a computer screen? “I had to figure out things to do beyond the prepared lesson,” he reflects.  And that often involved plain old conversation. “Their whole worlds had changed, like all of ours had.  And they wanted to talk about it.” 

The students’ surroundings became even more complex later that spring, when the nation confronted a racial reckoning after the murder of George Floyd.  In May, Sheppard was moved to a fifth grade classroom, where the students were eager to process what was occurring as far away as on TV and as close as the streets outside their homes.  He remembers one girl’s description of attending a protest with her parents: “She said, ‘I was with my family.  But I was also part of a bigger family.’”  Sheppard was blown away by his students’ understanding of community and their earnest desire to make sense of the moment.  “Open and honest dialogue with fifth graders made me see that they have full thoughts.  They’re questioning things, and if they’re not given the space to do so, kids are going to make their own assumptions.”

That fall, Malachi began his first semester as a graduate student even as he continued to work part time at Baltimore Highlands.  It was a surreal experience teaching children online during the day and attending classes with his professors virtually in the evenings. While he made it work, he is thrilled to be back in person, forging even deeper connections with young people in a city that carries tremendous meaning for him.  “The people of Baltimore are truly beautiful, regardless of what the news constantly says about the city.  I hope that Baltimore students receive from me everything that I wanted in a teacher when I was their age.”

In considering how his identity has played a role in how he is received by his students, Sheppard draws several connections between his effectiveness as a teacher and the intersectionality of his multiple identities.  As a Black man, he recognizes his rarity in the early childhood space and smiles as he describes the looks on his students’ faces when they see him for the first time. “It’s like a non-verbal ‘What’s he doing here? He’s a young Black guy! This is new for us…in a good way.’” 

In addition to race and gender, Sheppard cites his passion for creative expression as a tool that has helped him forge bonds with young learners.  In college, he was a member of an acapella singing group, and he currently runs his own photography and videography business. This past summer, he worked at an early learning center in Baltimore, and his four-year-olds loved the music from various genres that he would play for them each day.  A collage of handmade farewell cards from the preschoolers adorns his bedroom wall. 

Sheppard confesses that he initially resisted the pressure around the expectations of his impact as a man of color in a female dominated profession. But he has come to embrace the uniqueness that he brings to school communities.  Mr. Sheppard anticipates a lifelong journey in the education space, potentially transitioning to high school in future years, and eventually to higher education, where he seeks to train future educators as a “teacher’s teacher.” However, Malachi is in no rush. The dance party he spontaneously hosts in a first grade class and the hugs he receives when class is dismissed remind him that right here, right now, he is exactly where he wants to be.