While other children played ballerina or dreamed of floating in outer space, Kendra Hearn spent her playtime imagining that she had her own classroom.

“I always wanted to be a teacher in Detroit, my hometown,” she says.

Now, as clinical assistant professor of education and associate chair for secondary teacher education at the School of Education, and coordinator of the Teach for America-Detroit Interim Teacher Certification and Master of Arts in Educational Studies — Urban Pedagogy programs, Hearn is living her dream in a way that she never predicted.

After completing an undergraduate degree in English and education at U-M, Hearn’s first teaching position sent her to Detroit’s Redford High School. There she found herself “educating the children of Detroit, my neighbors.” In this way, Hearn found a way to use her passion to uplift her own community: “I saw the power of education to elevate my own life and that of my family from a history of poverty and disadvantage.”

After a few years of teaching in Detroit, Hearn was recruited by a suburban school district, West Bloomfield. In various roles including curriculum director and assistant superintendent, Hearn found satisfaction in “creating involvement with staff, for the students to benefit ultimately. It was teaching on a whole different scale.”

The scale of Hearn’s next position would be even larger. When she came across the job posting for coordinator of U-M’s partnership with Teach for America-Detroit, she says, “It felt like it was written just for me.”

Hearn has built the School of Education’s teacher-education partnership with Teacher for America -Detroit every step of the way; 2014 marks the program’s fourth year. Facilitating the partnership between Ann Arbor and Detroit requires every ounce of Hearn’s creativity and organizational abilities.

“In the first year, it was literally like building a plane and flying it all at the same time,” she laughs. Four years later, the program sponsors 200 TFA corps members enrolled in U-M interim teacher certification classes, with most pursuing an optional path to more permanent licensure or a master’s degree.

The program offers a multifaceted curriculum, with students working in Detroit-area classrooms of TFA’s partner schools by day, and taking School of Education classes at the Detroit Center by night.

Hearn’s passion for education has taken her across the world. Before Hearn joined U-M, she spent the summer of 2008 as a Fulbright Hays scholar, studying educational systems in South Africa.

Q & A

What moment in the classroom stands out as the most memorable?

I call it “the Starbucks lesson.” In Starbucks, everything is very deliberate, from the café environment to how customers interact with the barista. In the lesson, which is really about student assessment in the English classroom, we go to our local Starbucks and use a rubric that we have created. I treat my students to something delectable, we evaluate the Starbucks experience as a performance assessment, and the light bulbs go on. The students start to see opportunities for ways that they can and should evaluate their own students beyond paper and pencil tests. This lesson generates a lot of “a-ha” moments.

What can’t you live without?

My two sons, Donny and Dylan; my chocolate lab, Zooey; and my hula hoops. I hula hoop every day, at least 20 to 30 minutes, and I have my own business, “Hoopflow,” so I also make hoops and teach now. I have a room for hula hooping in my house — there are scuff marks all over the walls!

What is your favorite spot in Ann Arbor?

The Arb and the labyrinth at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens.

What inspires you?

I’m inspired by other inquisitive people, those who take not so new ideas and turn them over, even if ever so slightly; any person with a new point of view, a reflection of their own curiosity.

What are you currently reading?

For leisure reading, “Americanah” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. For professional reading, as a school we are reading “Improbable Scholars: The Rebirth of a Great American School System and a Strategy for America’s Schools,” by David Kirp.

Who had the greatest influence on your career path?

Ronnie Philips, my counselor at Cass Technical High School. Mr. Phillips said to me: “You are capable of something more.” As a ninth-grader, he placed me in our school’s most challenging curriculum and, in 12^th grade signed me up for an admissions interview with U-M. Had it not been for him, I’d like to think I would have found my way, but I think those moves made the difference.