From AmeriCorps member to educator: Get to know City Year LA alum Hayden Parsley

Hayden Parsley, City Year Los Angeles AmeriCorps class of ’24, is a recent graduate of City Year but is already making waves in the education space. Right after graduation, Hayden began working towards his teaching credential, teaching through our partner organization Ednovate and the Marshall Teacher Residency. Hayden has successfully transitioned into a teaching role and shared with us about his journey of leveraging his City Year experience to impact the lives of students. 

What was your favorite memory as an AmeriCorps member? 

My favorite memory as a corps member, serving at Dr. Maya Angelou Community High School, is hard to pick out because so much of what defined my experience as a corps member isn’t the big moments, it’s in the little ones.  

For example, I started working with a student who was making a lot of excuses for why she was failing her classes. And then in my last check in with her, she was telling me “Sir, I’m passing all my classes!” And that’s such a great feeling. And then there was another one of my students was behind in our English class, and the first time that he got 100% on one of the reading tests he tried to play it off like it was no big deal- but it was a big deal to me. 

Those little wins are really what I took away from City Year and what I continue to take away from teaching today in my current role. 

How has serving a City Year supported you in your current field? 

Service has prepared me for the field of teaching in a lot of ways. Teaching is all about your relationship with your students. A lot of people go into teaching just because they love the subject that they want to teach, and you should love the subject that you want to teach, but you also need to love the kids.  

Nearly half of City Year alums (48%) responded in a 2022 survey that they currently work in the education sector as teachers, administrators, guidance counselors, in education policy or at education focused nonprofits.

City Year puts you in a really unique position where you can see the realities of what the students you are serving are going through. Teaching can be a little detached, but in City Year, you sit next to them, and your goal is to help students get through the day and pass the class. In those spaces you can kind of reflect, not just about the barriers and the inequities within the education system, but also about what it’s like to be a teenager and how hard it is to be a student. Having the AmeriCorps member experience and helping your students as their advocate first, and then going into teaching, is a really valuable perspective that not a lot of other teachers have. 

What advice do you have for current/incoming AmeriCorps members? 

My number one piece of advice for corps members is to learn everything from everyone. There’s a lot of interesting professionals, in the schools we serve at, who work in City Year, and in the companies that partner with City Year. Learn from them whatever you can. 

If you are thinking about going into teaching, this is a great time to talk to your partner teachers and learn from them how to do some of the more complicated teaching things. I used to ask [my partner teachers] all the time, “how do you plan lessons?” and “How do you then develop your teacher voice?” These are some of the skills that you will develop in teaching, so it’s great to get started during your City Year. 

Your community also includes your students. Students have a lot of life experience, and you’re going to learn from them in ways that you don’t expect. Learn from everybody. 

Why is it important for alumni to come back and stay engaged with City Year? 

I think one of the reasons it’s important for alumni, like me, to come back to City Year is that most of the corps members don’t know what they want to do in the future, and they can really use our guidance and support as they figure it out. City year attracts people who are looking for a change. People who know they want to do something good, but they aren’t exactly sure how to do it. We’re all very young, inexperienced and just looking to get out there and do something during our City Year. 

When I joined, I didn’t think that I wanted to teach, but my experience at City Year completely changed my mind about that. My relationship with those kids completely changed the whole trajectory of my life and what I wanted to do. I think City Year has the potential to do that for a lot of people. It’s important for corps members to hear from alumni who were able to turn their City Year experience into something amazing, just like I did. 

Thank you, Hayden, for being a strong advocate for City Year and your students! If you’re interested in exploring teaching opportunities, we encourage you to reach out to our partners at Teach for America, Ednovate, or the Marshall Teacher Residency. They offer pathways into education and are a great resource for alumni passionate about teaching.