No teacher is as familiar with the students of Baltimore School for the Arts (BSA) as Shalise Allison. Holding the sole responsibility of teaching Biology to the 9th grade class, Allison sees every student from their very first day in the building.

But Allison’s own time in school was not easy. Immigrating to Baltimore from Jamaica at age 9, she experienced bullying, social changes, and also great inspiration from her own Biology teacher.

Since starting at BSA in 2019, Allison has become comfortably rooted in Baltimore’s community, working as a student mentor at her alma mater and writing curriculum for the district. I sat down with her at the long lab tables where I once sorted beans to simulate population dynamics: here’s an edited version of our conversation.

Goeke: I noticed when I walked in here, you were talking with a group of students from Morgan State. What’s your affiliation with Morgan? Why are they here?

Allison: I’m a two-time Morgan graduate, it’s where I got my bachelor’s and master’s. When I started my undergrad in Biology, I did an internship where I was able to teach high schoolers Biology. We were the first cohort to run the program with a grant from the Walter Reed Army Institute. That’s who we are affiliated with, and once I left Morgan and I graduated with my Biology degree, I was able to land a job because of that internship.

Once I got this job, I joined the teachers in the program and invited Morgan students who are doing Biology or other STEM degrees to come into my classroom and teach my kids Biology.

Right out of college, did you start teaching, or did you do something else?

Yeah, after college, I started right with teaching here.

This is your first school! Many other teachers moved to BSA from other schools – how did you get to start here?

When I finished my degree, I went to the work fair and met [former BSA administrators] Chris Ford and Mary Evans. I went with my resume, and I was hired on the spot! That’s how I landed the job: my resume, I told them about me, and I got the job.

When you were in high school, did you want to do teaching, or was Biology your main interest then?

Since I was little, I was always captivated by science, but I had self doubt. I wasn’t confident in my abilities to grasp those concepts. I didn’t have a great science education until high school.

I did start school in Jamaica, and then I migrated to the U.S. in 1999, and I started in fourth grade. But my inspiration came in ninth grade from my Biology teacher, Ms. Lopez, at Edmondson-Westside High School. She was so cool, well-rounded, very knowledgeable. It didn’t matter what level you were on, she was willing to help you where you are.

That’s why I understand that perspective. When my kids come in and say, “Oh, science is hard,” I try to meet them where they are, but also try to let them know, “You’re at this level, but by the end of this year, you should be at this level.”

After high school, did you start out as a Biology major, or another science?

When I left high school, I actually didn’t know what I wanted to do. So, I moved to Fredericksburg, Virginia and started community college. I just did prerequisites, so math, English, the basic subjects. In between all that, I had a baby.

When I came back to Baltimore, I started back up at BCCC, and I still did prerequisites. Finally, I decided to go to Morgan for Biology, but what I wanted to do was physical therapy. That was my first interest – physical therapy, or just being in a lab. The internship is what landed me as a teacher.

The high school I went to [Edmondson-Westside High School] was a vocational school, so they had childcare [available as a vocational program for students] there, and from the age of 15 I was working with little kids. Before I became a Biology teacher, I was a daycare worker, and I worked there for at least 10 years. I left daycare and went straight to teaching Biology.

You’ve only taught at BSA, so you’ve only taught high school – have you wanted to teach younger children?

No, [laughs] I think the ten years that I did was enough. I did really enjoy my moments there because the perspective of teaching children from two years up is so beautiful – you get to see their development from being potty trained to learning their name to writing numbers. My biggest thing when I came to high school was that high schoolers don’t act too different from the little ones anyway. I’m just intrigued by the development of children’s brains through school.

When I was in your class last year, you talked about your interest in forensics. Was that something that you did at all in college, or is this just a sort of hobby?

I did! I did forensics a little bit in college: at BCCC, we did anatomy and physiology. I worked on cadavers, and other bodily things in the lab. That science is still a part of my love, and one reason that stopped me from going to forensics – I’m being completely honest – is that you have to be on call! That’s the one thing that kept me from flying through that program.

And you had kids at that point, too.

Yeah, I had one child. I am a single parent with a father who is active, but I think that I wouldn’t be able to be successful in that job. But I still love forensics, I love those TV shows.

What are your favorites?

The First 48, of course, solving those. Law & Order: SVU. Grey’s Anatomy. Any of those shows where you have to sit there and solve what’s happening, I can pick up certain things they’re saying.

You said earlier that you migrated from Jamaica. What happened in your life that led you to Baltimore? 

Just my parents wanting a better life for us. I’m the baby of eight. There’s a process for filing to immigrate, but my grandparents were never here, so my dad had to go through his brothers, and when it’s a sibling filing, it could take at least ten years. My dad had been filing since before I was born. It was the 1980s when he started filing, and we didn’t leave Jamaica until 1999. So it took a long time before we were able to get into the United States.

And you want to get here – I hate to say it, but – legally. We got here legally with the green card and all those things, which is crucial.

Did you go through the whole citizenship process, or was that just your parents?

My parents had to take the test, so I’m a naturalized citizen – we all are. I didn’t take it because I was under 18.

Was that process straining for your family?

For my parents having so many children, yes. My dad was a farmer in Jamaica. My mom was a stay-at-home parent.

I would say, in that community, we were considered to be as well off, because we had indoor bathrooms and a big tank that could give us water. When we came to the U.S., my dad started his first job at McCormick. I will never forget that because he always came home smelling like spices.

I came to Baltimore in September, and I was enrolled immediately in school. I didn’t have any chance to take a break or breathe. The first year in my life here, I cried a lot, because it was just so different. Lots of bullying, to me and my brother. It was a lot.

My dad just makes sure he provided for us. My mom didn’t have to work for a little while, and then she started working in the bakery at Giant. It felt stressful and straining sometimes, and my parents made it look easy, but it wasn’t easy.

Being an immigrant in elementary school, I assume that was a hard position.

Yeah. It was hard because I was coming to a new territory, didn’t know anyone. Then, I’m starting school in fourth grade when other kids have known each other probably from kindergarten, first grade, etcetera. Here I am coming in as an immigrant with an accent on top of that. The clothing, the hair, it was all completely different from what they were used to. But the biggest thing I got teased for was my accent, like, “Go back to your country,” you know. And, our family used lots of spices in our food, so you would come to school and your coat might smell like that, and you’d get teased for that.

I notice, you don’t have a Jamaican accent now. Is that something that happened because of the school environment, or did you try to change?

No, I can switch it off. [She starts speaking with a slight accent]. If I’m around my family, you can’t understand me, but I can switch it. So I can speak Jamaican. We were speaking English in Jamaica anyway, but we just had an accent.

Do you still have other family in Jamaica that you go visit?

Yeah, my brother’s still there. He has a house, business, etcetera. So we can go down and stay with him. I also have cousins from my mom’s side as well, and then sometimes, I just go down there for a resort – it just depends on how I feel! But, yes, I still have lots of family there.

I want to round it out by coming back to BSA. You are in a unique position because you teach exclusively 9th graders, which means you see every BSA student right as they’re fresh in the school. How does that change how you see the students compared to some of the other teachers?

I think it’s so important for me to set the tone. Coming from middle school to high school, for some students based on their experiences, can be quite daunting. Some students come right in and got it: do homework, study, etcetera. Other students are like, “What is this? How do I even navigate 10 classes? How do I navigate studying?”

I try my best to set the tone, to be as positive as possible, and also letting them know, “BSA is no joke.” And it’s not just me telling them what to do, but I try to show: “If you’re gonna study, here’s what you need to do.”

What happens in your first year is set in stone, and these skills are going to help you go through the next three years. If you are not putting your best foot forward when you come in the first year, you might still fall, and you can fall a couple of times, but at the end of ninth grade, you should be standing as tall as possible, and I want to help.

You’ve taught here for six years so far – what’s next? Do you see your position changing at any point, or are you set where you are?

I can’t say I’m set – however, I’m not leaving right now, that won’t be for a while. I still do the things that I love. I’m still in the lab. In the summertime, I write curriculum for the city. I teach students at Morgan that are incoming for Biology. So I still have my feet wet in many different experiences that I like. Teaching is ingrained within me, and for right now, I’m grounded here at BSA.

This is an edited version of a conversation from April 28th, 2025.

To contact this writer, email Muse Newspaper at musebsa@bsfa.org.

Featured photos by Jude Harvey for The Muse.