The June 2, 2011 issue of West Side Spirit. The West Side Spirit, published weekly, is chock full of information—from hard news to human interest stories—that helps residents and businesspeople keep up with the goings on in their neighborhood. It regularly covers politics, community developments, education and issues of immediate concern. The Spirit’s regular feature, City Week, which it shares with sister publication Our Town, highlights important cultural and community events. The result is a must-read for anyone who wants to keep abreast of information rarely touched on by the large citywide newspapers and broadcast media.
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June 2, 2011 Since 1985 A Greenhouse Grows in the West Side Opposition Grows to Charter School Say Cheese: Photos from New Taste of UWS P.6 P.6 P.8 News: Mayor to Gut Early Childcare Budget Page 10 Sponsored by Profiles of 18 of the city’s best teachers See page 11 Sponsored by New York Family, Rosie Pope and Mom Prep: What Is My Life Purpose and How Do I Get There With Kids? A Special Workshop for Parents in Transition. Monday, June 6, 10:30am-12:00pm; at Mom Prep, 1316 Madison Avenue, at 93d Street. For more info and to register: visit NewYorkFamily.com (See “Special Events & Seminars”)
Transcript
June 2, 2011 Since 1985
A Greenhouse Growsin the West Side
Opposition Growsto Charter School
Say Cheese: Photos from New Taste of UWS
P.6
P.6
P.8
News: Mayor to Gut Early Childcare Budget Page 10
Sponsored by
P R E S E N T
E X C E L L E N C E I N E D U C A T I O N
MONDAY JUNE 6, 2011 5:30 - 7 :30 PMALSO SPONSORED BY
Manhattan
Media
The Blackboard wards for TeachersA
P R E S E N T
E X C E L L E N C E I N E D U C A T I O N
MONDAY JUNE 6, 2011 5:30 - 7 :30 PMALSO SPONSORED BY
Manhattan
Media
The Blackboard wards for TeachersA
Profiles of 18 of the city’s best teachers See page 11
Sponsored by New York Family, Rosie Pope and Mom Prep:
What Is My Life Purpose and How Do I Get There With Kids?A Special Workshop for Parents in Transition.
Monday, June 6, 10:30am-12:00pm; at Mom Prep, 1316 Madison Avenue, at 93d Street. For more info and to register: visit NewYorkFamily.com (See “Special Events & Seminars”)
2 • west side spirit • June 2, 2011 News YOU LiVe BY
express
Mayor Bloomberg lays a wreath at the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument in observance of Memorial Day.
Remembering The Fallen
Spencer
T Tuck
er
CRIME CHECKWeekly, monthly and year-to-date crime stats from the 20th Precinct, on the West Side from 59th to 86th streets
Source: Compstat
Year to Date
2011 2010 % change
Murder 0 1 -100.0
Rape 6 4 50.0
Robbery 26 34 -23.5
Felony Assault 19 28 -32.1
Burglary 24 43 -44.2
Grand Larceny 227 259 -12.4
Grand Larceny Auto 7 11 -36.4
TOTAL 309 380 -18.68
(Week to Date May 16 to May 22) 28 Day
2011 2010 % change 2011 2010 % change
Murder 0 0 ***.* 0 0 *** *
Rape 0 0 ***.* 1 1 0
Robbery 0 1 -100.0 4 8 -50.0
Felony Assault 1 1 0 4 4 0
Burglary 1 0 ***.* 5 6 -16.7
Grand Larceny 8 7 14.3 51 46 10.9
Grand Larceny Auto 1 1 0 2 3 -33.3
TOTAL 11 10 10.00 67 68 -1.47
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WestSideSpirit.com June 2, 2011 • WeSt Side Spirit • 5
COLUMBUS AVENUE GARDENING—Thanks to the coordination of State Senator Tom Duane, Community Board 7 and the Parks and Transportation Departments, Upper West Side residents can now garden without fear in the tree pits bordering Columbus Avenue’s pro-tected bike lanes. Last year, residents who made use of this new green space by creating mini-gardens were surprised to find their flowers uprooted by a land-scape company, contracted by the city. After hearing complaints about this practice, the groups met to clarify the
city’s policies and determined that while the Parks Department is responsible for planting and maintaining the trees, green-thumbed neighbors are welcome to plant and maintain small patches of appropri-ate foliage. The city has agreed that the flora will remain unharmed.
“In a dense, urban environment such as Manhattan, we need every square foot of green space that we can get,” said Sen. Duane in a statement.
Anyone interested in getting their hands dirty and greening Columbus Avenue should contact Community Board 7 for a list of acceptable plants and gar-dening methods: 212-362-4008, [email protected].
—Megan Finnegan
SENIOR CENTER NEEDS LUNCH VISITORS—The JASA “Club 76” (Jewish Association for Services for the Aged) serves hot Kosher lunches to about 50 seniors per day for a charge of $1.50 per meal. They need to boost their daily num-bers to 75 seniors served per day in order to maintain this program. Currently the only senior center in the area to serve Kosher meals, JASA narrowly avoided the chopping block when state budget cuts threatened to close many of New York’s senior centers. Breakfast at the
club is 8 a.m. and lunch is 12 p.m. every weekday. 120 W. 76th St. Call 212-712-0170 for information.
—MF
MANCHESTER CENTENNIAL—Upper West Side co-op building The Manchester, at 255 W. 108th St., turned 100 years old last week and celebrated with an Edwardian high tea, harkening back to the era when the building was built. Assembly Member Daniel O’Donnell was in attendance to present an official proclamation honoring the anniversary. The building, described in a 1910 New York Times article as containing “every modern improvement known to the builders of the highest class apartment houses,” currently has about 100 resi-dents, and has seen several well-known names under its roof through the years, including author Flannery O’Connor and Governor Thomas E. Dewey. The original apartments had between six and eight rooms each, complete with faux fireplaces and servants’ quarters. Now, residents are compiling the history of the building and assembling a time cap-sule for the occupants to open at The Manchester’s hopeful bicentennial shin-dig, 100 years from now.
—MF
STREET FAIR—The Broadway Mall Association and the West Side Federation of Neighborhood & Block Associations host the 34th Annual Plantation & Crafts Fair on Sunday, June 12, 12–5 p.m., between West 73rd and West 86th streets on Broadway. There will be 400 exhibi-tors, entertainment in three areas of the festival and 50 food stands featuring many different cuisines.
—Catharine Daddario
express
Tuesday, June 7
• Community Board 7 Full Board Meeting, 6:30 p.m., Jewish Home Lifecare, 120 W. 106th St.
This schedule is current as of Tuesday, May 31. For more information, including full agendas, please contact the community boards directly.
Community Board 7 Parks & Environment Committee: 212-362-4008, cb7.org.
Communitymeeting Calendar
Singer Rachel Hundert, Composer Jay Alan Zimmerman, Meryl Zegarek in Ed-wardian dress and Opera Singer Irwin Re-ese celebrate the 100th birthday of the The Manchester.
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6 • west side spirit • June 2, 2011 News YOU LiVe BY
With Construction Stopped, Charter Fight Continues
A School Greenhouse Grows on UWS
By Megan FinneganLast week, while dozens of elected offi-
cials, parents and education experts ral-lied against the co-location of the Upper West Success Academy Charter School, the head of that same charter school net-work sat in the midst of kids’ artwork in a Harlem gallery, calmly explaining her hopes for the future students of the trou-bled charter.
“I get that charter schools are a new vehicle, but it’s just a way of delivering an education,” said Eva Moskowitz, CEO and founder of Success Charter Network and an outspoken education reform advocate.
Her latest proposed school is under siege from two lawsuits and a loud group of opponents who feel that the location of Upper West Success is problematic and unfair to the current high school students they say will be “squeezed out” of space. Moskowitz insists that there is space for Success, and that more importantly, the school would provide a necessary alternative to some of the area’s public schools.
“You could live a half a block from a great school, but the line doesn’t include you, you could have to make some really difficult choices, between mov-ing to Westchester or New Jersey or
Connecticut, or coming up with the mon-ey for private school. It’s not easy to pay 30, 40K per kid,” said Moskowitz.
Success Charter Network finally found a home for their newest school in February, when the Panel for Education Policy approved the co-location at the Brandeis High School Building. Opposition came to a head a few weeks ago when a group of parents, sup-ported by several elected officials and Public Advocate Bill De Blasio, sued the Department of Education to stop the establishment of Upper West Success. A judge has ordered that construction on the new school stop while the lawsuit is in play, and in the meantime, the United Federation of Teachers and the NACCP have filed an additional lawsuit, seeking to halt the co-location practice which it cites as “separate and unequal.”
Moskowitz characterizes the opposi-tion to Upper West Success as a “vocal minority” of people in the community, but others question that portrayal.
Noah Gotbaum, president of the District 3 Community Education Council and a vocal opponent of the school, called the statement “just ridiculous,” and pointed out that Community Board 7 vot-ed unanimously against the co-location,
and that every Upper West Side elected official has spoken against it.
According to Gotbaum, the argument against the charter school goes beyond the debate about the location and also relates to how the school is spending public funds to advertise itself.
“They’ve spent over a million dollars to manufacture that demand,” Gotbaum said about the school’s marketing. “Why is [Moskowitz] spending millions? If this school is so wanted and desired, why does she have to spend that kind of money?”
Moskowitz has said Gotbaum’s mil-lion-dollar estimate is grossly exaggerat-ed, but she has not revealed the school’s marketing figure.
Gotbaum and others cite the lack of space at Brandeis as a main factor in their opposition, while Moskowitz asserts that there is plenty of room for Success to co-exist with the five high schools.
“Even though there had been room originally for a certain number of kids, there isn’t any longer because the usage has had to change,” said Rachel Dahill-Fuchel, academic dean of the Global Learning Collaborative school.
“I am not genetically opposed to charter schools, or even to sharing
space with an elementary school,” said Dahill-Fuchel, who said that the specific requirements of the charter school would necessarily take away space from the high schools. “There is no room, and we are already being pushed out of the space that the DOE assigned us.”
Upper West Success has accepted about 180 students for its inaugural kin-dergarten class, and if it can’t open in a few months, those students will most likely be placed at their regular zoned schools.
For Nina Rosen, the parent of a hope-ful Upper West Success kindergartner who lives in the West 50s, that option won’t be good enough.
“We were originally zoned for P.S. 199,” said Rosen. “Then they changed the zoning, literally less than a month before applications were due, so we didn’t have time to move.” Her son was suddenly zoned to attend a failing school, and when a friend mentioned the new charter option, Rosen jumped at the chance for her son to attend.
“It got to the point that, this is the school that I want for my son,” Rosen said. “Now there’s all this litigation, all these political issues, and it’s just heartbreaking.”
By Megan FinneganWhen Jennifer Betz won a grant for
$10,000, she figured it would be best to place the decision-making power of how to spend it in the hands of elementary school students.
Betz, now a teacher at The Dwight School on the Upper West Side, was awarded a grant by Dickinson College, when she was on undergraduate six years ago, through their Teachers for Tomorrow program.
The stipulation was that she would only receive the funding after teaching for six years, and then she could use it any way she saw fit, as long as it benefit-ed her school and community.
“I thought it would be more mean-ingful for the kids to figure out how to use it,” said Betz. She founded the Take Action Club and helped the students research problems facing New York City. The kids felt that some of the most urgent issues facing the city were homelessness and sustainability.
“One student said, ‘Why don’t we plant apple trees in Central Park so people will have apples?’” Betz said. That was the inspi-
ration to start planting food and donating it to the local shelter. Together with Science Department Head Barry Gragg, Bentz formed the Greenhouse Club, which now has about a dozen students who work on the vegetable garden after school.
To get started, they spent about $4,800 on a greenhouse, which sits atop the Dwight School’s roof, and the rest of the money on supplies like irrigation system, containers, seedlings and soil.
“I’ve never had any experi-ence gardening,” said Annalisa Van Wagner, a 10th grader in the club. “I’m always surprised it actually works.” The older kids repot seedlings and help with some of the tougher labor.
Last week, three 3rd grad-ers climbed to the roof to pick lettuce and spinach to fill card-board boxes with produce.
“We grow plants, and we make soil,” said Ella Segal, one of the club members, as she plucked leaves from a giant tub.
Ella and two of her classmates, Mary
Duet and Hamda Tahir, chatted with Bentz as they harvested their work, and then they trouped to the Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew to bring three box-es of fresh greens to the Campaign for Hunger Food Pantry.
The kids added their contribution and
helped stack bags of dry beans and boxes of cereal on the shelves of the market-style pantry, where customers are allot-ted a certain number of points and can
then select their own food items.“It’s a very new partnership, but these
are the kinds of things that turn into something big in the future,” said Hannah Lupien, the food policy strategist at the pantry who showed the students how to pitch in. She said that the pantry spends about $10,000 a week to buy food, which always includes fresh fruits and vegeta-bles and milk.
The spinach might not go very far in the scheme of things, but Betz hopes to keep upping the students’ donations every season and is happy that they are learning skills as well as compassion.
“The hardest part is finding a way to grow most effectively,” Betz said. She is waiting to hear an estimate from a Dwight alumnus who works in rooftop landscap-ing. The best scenario, if they can get the funding, would be to transform the entire roof into a garden. For this year, they are hoping they’ll be able to harvest the spin-ach one more time before the growing season ends.
“The point is that these kids know there are hungry people in their neighborhood and they are able to help,” Lupien said.
news
Jennifer Betz used a $10,000 to build a greenhouse on top of the Dwight School. The vegetables are given away to local food pantries.
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W e s t S i d e S p i r i t . c o m J u n e 2 , 2 0 1 1 • W E S T S I D E S P I R I T • 7
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8 • west side spirit • June 2, 2011 News YOU LiVe BY
photo essayCelebration of Best at ‘New Taste’
pho
tos co
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tesy of n
ew taste o
f the u
pper w
est side
Above: New Taste of the Up-per West Side honored Dana Cowin, center, editor-in-chief of Food & Wine magazine. Missy Robbins, executive chef at A Doce Restaurant, Jonathan Denno, executive chef at Lincoln, and Chef Jacques Torres joined her.
Right: A plethora of desserts were on hand for foodies to sample at the May 20–21 New Taste of the Upper West Side.
Above: Some savory treats that were available at the fourth annual New Taste of the UWS.
Right: Some event-goers toast New Taste with a drink. There were free spirits and wine from local brewer-ies and distillers on hand for the celebration of the best restaurants and spirit shops on the Upper West Side.
ANNOUNCING A NEW CHOICEIN HOME CARE THAT COMES WITH
OVER 30 YEARS OF EXPERIENCENorth Shore-LIJ Home Care Network now provides home care right here in Manhattan. That’s good news, because we’re also one of the most experienced home care agencies in New York State. And we know your neighborhood, because we’re part of the same health system as Lenox Hill Hospital. So whether it’s for a child, an elderly parent or yourself, call us to bring the highest standard of care to your door.
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File: 14194a NS-LIJ Home Care AdSize: 10” x 5.541”Publication: Our Town/ West Side SpiritPublication Day: Weekly
W e s t S i d e S p i r i t . c o m J u n e 2 , 2 0 1 1 • W E S T S I D E S P I R I T • 9
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10 • west side spirit • June 2, 2011 News YOU LiVe BY
news
By Allen HoustonManhattan Borough President Scott
Stringer and other elected officials host-ed a spirited town hall meeting May 25 at Goddard Riverside Community Center, 593 Columbus Ave., to protest proposed cuts to childcare and early education.
In his preliminary budget in February, Mayor Bloomberg proposed cutting 16,000 subsidized childcare slots from the Administration for Children’s Services, saying that it would save the city an esti-
mated $91 million out of its $65 billion budget. At the time, the cut meant that the number of ACS funded slots would be reduced from 106,000 to 90,000, accord-ing to the administration.
After protests and discussions with City Council, the Mayor announced that the 16,000 lost slots would be restored at a cost of $40 million to taxpayers, less than half of what it said it would save from cutting the seats. Elected officials questioned how the programs could
operate at the same levels if they were receiving only half the funds of what they received last year. Also, out of the $40 million, $15 million will be diverted to the Department of Youth and Community Development (DYCD) to create 10,500 Out-of-School Time (OST) spots for fami-lies who have been served by ACS.
“In the old days the mayor could say with a wink and a nod, ‘Well, we’re restor-ing $40 million,’ and for a lot of people that was enough,” Stringer said. “What we’re
seeing now is that people are looking at the early childcare cuts and saying, ‘Enough is enough, you aren’t going to do this.’”
Early childcare programs, such as the one at Goddard Riverside, supply early childhood education to children ages 2 to 4, whose parents are below the poverty line. Students attend the classes all day long, all year, while the OST classes take place from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.
“We have thousands and thousands of parents at the edge of whether they are going to make it in this city or not,” said Stringer. “All because of this budget dance that’s gotten out of control.”
The Borough President said he was troubled about how the city plans to keep up the quality of its care if they slash the budget. More than 14,000 childcare slots have already been lost in the childcare system over the last four years, according to the Borough President’s office.
Some wept as they talked about the hardship that they would endure if the program were taken away.
Nancy Martinez, tears in her eyes, said that she is afraid of losing her job and going on welfare because she can’t afford to put her two children into other, more expensive childcare programs.
“I can’t afford $40,000 for childcare,” she said. “With the atrocious New York City rents and $1,500 a month on childcare, I don’t know how I’m going to make it.”
“It’s overwhelming,” said another Goddard Riverside Community mother, who didn’t wish her name to be known. “I just started working in September and if they take away this program it’s going to cut my legs out from under me. I can’t afford childcare.”
Council Member Gale Brewer said she couldn’t imagine a worse worst-case sce-nario than the city taking away childcare from low-income people.
“The least we can do as a society is provide childcare for people who are trying to pull themselves up by the boot-straps,” she said.
State Senator Bill Perkins closed the meeting by asking the people in atten-dance how many of them would be per-sonally affected if the program were to be taken away. At least half of the hands in the packed room went up.
“I’ve seen this daycare problem time and time again, and it’s only because of your hard work and vigilance that we’ve been able to beat them back,” he said. “It requires all of us working together to stop them.”
The deadline for the Mayor to deliver his executive budget for the next year is June 30.
Mayor to Gut Early Childcare Budget
Saturday, June 4, 201110:00 AM to Noon
NYU Langone Medical Center550 First Avenue (at 31st Street)Alumni Hall A
www.nyuci.orgAn NCI-designated Cancer Center Understanding cancer. And you.
Moderator
Deborah Axelrod, MD, FACS, Associate Professor, Department of Surgery
To RSVP, call 212-263-2266, email: [email protected] reserve online at www.nyuci.org/rsvp.
Please provide your name, phone number, the name of thelecture and the number of people attending.
The Facesof Cancer
Thanks to advances in early detection and treatment, more people are living with cancerthan ever before. Today, about two-thirds of people diagnosedwith cancer live fiveyearsormore. Join us as a panel of cancer survivors representing all ages share their experiencesabout life after a cancer diagnosis. This special eventwill also touch upon the unique needsand issues of survivors.
WestSideSpirit.com June 2, 2011 • WEST SIDE SPIRIT • 11
Sponsored by
P R E S E N T
E X C E L L E N C E I N E D U C A T I O N
MONDAY JUNE 6, 2011 5:30 - 7 :30 PMALSO SPONSORED BY
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12 • OUR TOWN • June 2, 2011 NEWS YOU LIVE BY
Many Great Teachers, 18 Honorees
BLACKBOARD AWARDS FOR TEACHERS
The Blackboard Awards, now in its 10th year, are Manhattan Media’s way of honoring the outstanding educational work that never seems to get the attention it deserves. Every spring we single out just a few of the city’s great teachers,
and this year the Blackboards take on a heightened significance as thousands of our public school teachers face layoffs—includ-ing two of our 18 honorees. We certainly hope these cuts to all of our schools can be avoided.
This year we received an unprecedented number of nomina-tions—over 1,000—from parents, students, teachers and princi-pals in the city’s private, religious and public schools. Regrettably, we were not able to award every deserving teacher, but our edi-tors and executives were heartened to read so many inspiring comments about the individual teachers. All of the nominees
have received a well-deserved honorable mention and we have posted their names at www.blackboardawards.com.
If there is a common theme for these 18 Blackboard recipients (and probably most outstanding teachers), it is that they are able to form connec-tions with each of his or her students, no matter how large the classroom.
In the fall we will be paying tribute to the city’s great schools and principals, but this spring we celebrate our extraordinary teachers.
Josh Rogers—Blackboard Awards, Special Sections Editor
GENERAL EXCELLENCERob Snyder St. Luke’s SchoolTheresa Furman P.S. 87Rodrigo Alonzo The Speyer Legacy SchoolLindsay Korn Growing Up Green Charter SchoolDenise Martinez Blessed Sacrament SchoolLinda Adler P.S. 40Rasheda Lyons P.S. 11/Purvis J. Behan Elementary SchoolSuzanne Mir Corpus Christi SchoolMaryann Diglio Staten Island AcademyDerek Bruun P.S. 166
SPECIALTY CATEGORIESTECHNOLOGY/SCIENCEBill LaMonte Millennium High School
SPECIAL EDUCATIONAnne Looser Herbert H. Lehman High School
ENGLISH/LANGUAGE ARTSMeredith Hill Columbia Secondary School for Math, Science and Engineering
HISTORY/SOCIAL STUDIESThandi Guimaraes The Renaissance Charter School
FOREIGN LANGUAGESRosa Torres International School of Brooklyn
PHYSICAL EDUCATIONJohn De Matteo P.S. 126/Manhattan Academy of Technology
2011 Blackboard Award Winners5:30 p.m., Reception
6:15 p.m., Welcome
Allen Houston, executive editor of
Our Town & West Side Spirit newspapers
6:20 p.m., Awards Presentation
Master of Ceremonies: Kate Snow, NBC News
Correspondent
CONGRATULATIONS AND THANK YOU TO THE NOMINEES, WINNERS AND ALL NEW YORK CITY TEACHERS!
W e s t S i d e S p i r i t . c o m J u n e 2 , 2 0 1 1 • W E S T S I D E S P I R I T • 1 3
212-787-8088175 Riverside Blvd at 68th Street www.bilingualbudsnyc.com
PRESCHOOL. KINDERGARTEN. AFTER SCHOOL. SUMMER CAMP.
Mandarin Immersion
Our Day School offers a rigorous, dual-languagecurriculum in a full immersion environment.
The St. Luke’s School Communitycongratulates treasured St. Luke’s School teacher
Rob Snyderon his
2011 Blackboard AwardFor General Excellence
and thanks him for his 38 years of dedicationand service to our community.
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14 • OUR TOWN • June 2, 2011 NEWS YOU LIVE BY
Lifetime Achievement Award for this TeacherGenerations of Village students honor St. Luke’s Snyder before he retires
By Paulette SafdiehAfter 38 years of teaching math and
social studies to the students of St. Luke’s School, Rob Snyder certainly raised expectations of teachers there. Snyder has seen students and their children walk through his 5th- and 6th-grade class-rooms, making him an icon for the West Village community.
Snyder’s consistent use of innova-tive teaching methods and his ability to establish school traditions, like the 5th-grade musical and the student-made
Egypt museum, earned him a Blackboard Award. The parents, students and teach-ers at St. Luke’s agree there is no better time to honor Snyder, since he will be retiring at the end of the year.
“People used to ask me how I manage to keep fresh after so many years,” said Snyder, who was the first at the school to use a Smart Board—an interactive white-board—in his classroom. “I was always interested in bringing new things to the school, and my love of dra-ma played into that.”
Ann Mellow, who served as head of school for 12 years, considers Snyder, 66, a mas-ter teacher in his ability to blend classi-cism with creativity.
“Teaching will lose one of its finest teachers, but his impact will live on in each of the lives, minds and hearts that he has shaped,” said Mellow, who left the school in 2007.
The gift of reaching young minds and spreading knowledge came natu-rally to Snyder, whose father was also an educator.
“The idea of teaching and service was always in me,” he said.
After a short job in New Jersey, he moved to St. Luke’s, where he’s been ever since.
“The St. Luke’s community is remark-able. It’s a small town in a big city,” he said.
Many former students feel lucky that their own children ended up in Snyder’s classroom, too. Sarah Edwards was part
of his 1974 class and her daughter, Victoria Manning, had Snyder as a teacher in 2009.
“He really is such an amazing and inspirational
teacher,” said Edwards.Many of Snyder’s past and current stu-
dents got together at the school recently to celebrate his career.
“Whenever a student graduates, the stu-dent’s name is called and the head of school reads a tribute about his or her strengths and what we love about them, and they did that for me,” said Synder of the gathering. His “favorite singer” Rosanne Cash, daugh-ter of the legendary Johnny Cash and mother of three St. Luke’s students, per-formed a mini-concert for her biggest fan.
Although Snyder is retiring from his teacher role, he accepted a part-time position as director of alumni affairs.
“This is all a shame in a way,” Snyder said of the attention surrounding his retirement. “I’ll still be around.”
He does plan to take advantage of his newly open schedule by traveling with friends. “My retired friends like to travel and they’ve always had to go on my schedule, during summer break. Now we’ll be going to New Zealand in February.”
Randi Cardia is one of many parents who feel fortunate to have had Snyder play a part in her children’s education. Cardia’s two sons, who are now in high school, still recognize Snyder as their favorite teacher.
“All I can say is there must be some kind of magic going on behind his class-room door,” said Cardia, who describes Snyder as one of “the most dedicated, patient, compassionate, kind and wise teachers at St. Luke’s.”
Fellow parent Lisa Barry agrees. “He is perhaps the most important asset that St. Luke’s has had over its lifetime.”
As one parent put it about Rob Snyder, “All I can say is there must be some kind of magic going on behind his classroom door.”
Plays the Role of Great K Teacher to a TWho loves Mr. Derek more, students or parents? Too close to callBy David Gibbons
When your cute little kindergartener bounds out of bed every morning and can’t wait to go to school, when you ask her how her day went and the most common answer you get is “excellent,” you can be sure something is going very right in the classroom. For the parents of the 24 kids in Room 103 at P.S. 166 who entrust the man universally known as “Mr. Derek” to orchestrate their children’s first official year of school, this has been—overwhelmingly—the experience.
Derek Bruun receives a cavalcade of ringing endorsements: “We are com-pletely in awe… I feel incredibly lucky,” “a real blessing,” “loving, warm and sup-portive… like a Mary Poppins of teach-ers,” “truly special and a standout,” “nur-turing yet challenging,” “organized and disciplined… communicates values by example,” “has a great sense of humor… clearly enjoys the students and lets them
experience his affection” and finally, “Mr. Derek is the teacher of every kindergar-ten parent’s dreams.”
School principal Debbie Hand sums things up succinctly: “He’s gifted.”
One parent calls Bruun “magical,” and sure enough, his bag of tricks contains a few that should serve these children a lifetime. Early in the day, to harness some of that famous 5-year-old’s kinetic energy, Bruun has them stretch silently to music,
like a yoga class warming up. In his room, he stresses above all “creating a caring community with empathetic scenarios.”
“You have to be willing to be a character for the kids sometimes,” he said. “You’ve got to know when it’s OK to be a little silly and also when it’s time to get more serious.”
Often going the proverbial extra mile, he’s been known to scout out the routes for day trips in advance, right down to the subway turnstiles, on his own time. He is thoughtfully focused on each student and
highly responsive to parent calls and emails. Bruun, 34, grew up in Acton, Mass.,
and early on discovered a vocation for working with children.
“I was a peer mentor in junior high and high school and really enjoyed that,” he said.
He originally set out to be a pedia-trician but along the way developed a passion for environmental science, his undergraduate major at University of Massachusetts Amherst. During col-lege summers, he worked as a clinical staff coordinator at Y.O.U., Inc. (Youth Opportunities Upheld), a child health and welfare non-profit in Worcester, Mass.
“Watching the teachers there in action, seeing that moment when the light bulb goes on for these young kids who were in such a difficult state in their lives—that’s when the teaching bug bit me,” he recalled. Bruun moved to New York City in 2001 and went to work at P.S. 166 on the Upper West Side. After two years as an assistant, he enrolled at Hunter College and earned his masters degree in early childhood education, paving the
way to becoming a full-fledged teacher.Bruun leads a team of four other
teachers and their assistants. The team encourages conceptual thinking and fos-ters independence.
“One of our main goals is that the kids become aware of the skills they have and don’t have to rely on teachers to apply them,” he said. “For example, we work with checklists from the beginning of the year and by the end they should be using those independently. We always acknowl-edge and celebrate when that happens.”
Derek Bruun says, “You have to be willing to be a character for the kids sometimes.”
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Derek BruunP.S. 166, the Richard Rogers School of Arts
and Technology132 W. 89th St.
Rob SnyderSt. Luke’s School487 Hudson St.
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blackboard awards for teachers
W e s t S i d e S p i r i t . c o m J u n e 2 , 2 0 1 1 • W E S T S I D E S P I R I T • 1 5
Summer Pre-College Program For Rising High School SeniorsPre-College Program: July 5-August 4
Exciting Course Options Available at the Lincoln Center Campus
Applications due Friday, June 3. For more information,
visit www.fordham.edu/summer or call (718) 817- 4665.
Speyer Educator Finds the Medium Means More than the MessageAlonzo uses film, music and different media to teach coursework
By Max SarinskyA blond 1st-grade boy sporting a fake
moustache stands inside a classroom that has been temporarily transformed into the Wild West. He is visually distraught as a voice from behind the camera—the voice of his teacher, Rodrigo Alonzo—asks what has just happened to the once quiet frontier.
“They dug up all the land to find gold,” he says with a traditional cowboy accent.
“What happened to you?”
“I lost most of my land.”The interviewer presses on: “Are you
interested in gold?”“No,” the student retorts.“What are you interested in?”“Cows!”“Cows, why?”The student thinks
for a moment before responding: “Because I’m a cowboy.”
The scene is just one of many in a 30-minute film that Alonzo made with his class at Speyer Legacy School on the Upper West Side as part of a unit on the California Gold Rush. But it demonstrates an important lesson that Alonzo, 40, has embraced through 18 years of teaching: that the medium is often more important than the message.
“It’s as much about how the kids are learning as what they’re learning,” he said.
Alonzo contrasted this with his philos-ophy when he first began teaching at St. Ann’s, when he “thought that just present-ing this stuff was in and of itself enough.”
The film premiered in the winter to a
full class of parents and the response was so positive, Alonzo said, that he decided to write a musical with the class revolv-ing on another topic of study: the early 20th-century immigration wave. The class
recently wrote three original songs together and will per-form the play next month as its year-end project.
Alonzo’s decision to bring songwriting into class repre-
sents another step in his embrace of dif-ferent teaching media. A longtime guitar player, Alonzo said that he was reluctant to incorporate song into the curriculum.
“I take songwriting very seriously,” he said. “I didn’t want to dominate.”
Alonzo taught kindergarten last year, and now has most of the same students in his 1st-grade class. Several of the parents said that Alonzo had a special ability to tailor instruction to the unique ways that each student learns.
Jennifer Elk, whose daughter Celia is in Alonzo’s class for the second straight year, credited Alonzo’s use of visual teaching methods with her daughter’s progress in math, a subject in which she
has traditionally struggled.“He really has a great understanding
of what makes each child motivated,” Elk said. Malena Belafonte, a founding board member of Speyer Legacy School whose daughter Sarasina is also in Alonzo’s class, offered similar praise.
“He really was able to make the kids who they are and still learn,” she said. Belafonte described her daughter as an ide-alist, which she said has fostered sensitivity to other childrens’ feelings that has previ-ously interfered with her own learning.
“He completely gets her sensitivity,” Belafonte said. “She’s become this full person who can handle everything but still believes in her vision of how the world should be… She wants to go to school on the weekends.”
Recent lessons include a lyrics-writ-ing session for the class musical and a synonym matching game including sev-eral words that most students didn’t recognize.
“There has to be a little element of challenge,” Alonzo said. “You set up the structure and they take it to places you didn’t think it could go.”
Rodrigo Alonzo.
She Keeps Her Students Looking UpFurman’s pupils at still remember her bird lessons years later By Ellen Keohane
Parents of children in Theresa Furman’s second grade class at P.S. 87 often think she provides their kids with extra attention—until they start talking to the other moms and dads.
“Every parent feels that their kid is super special to her,” said Linda Hahn, whose daughter was in Furman’s class two years ago. “She takes real time to get to know each kid.”
It’s no wonder that a number of P.S. 87 par-ents initiated a campaign to nominate Furman in the general excel-lence category for this year’s Blackboard Awards. The campaign’s success appears to have surprised no one—except Furman herself.
“It’s very well deserved. She teaches kids how to be curious about the world around them,” Monica Berry, principal of P.S. 87, said about the award. “Just walk-ing into her classroom, it’s impossible not to feel the warmth and excitement she generates.”
A Washington Heights resident, Furman, 56, didn’t always want to be a teacher. She started out as a pre-med major in college. However, a work-study program at a school made her re-think her plans. After graduation, she attended Bank Street College of Education.
“I’d been in high school near the end of the ’60s and I had that kind of political/social vision that I would work with kids who were in the inner city,” Furman said.
Furman taught in East Harlem for 17 years before
coming to P.S. 87 on the Upper West Side about 10 years ago.
“I had a son and he was entering kin-dergarten on the West Side and I wanted to be closer to him,” she explained. “P.S. 87 has really great kids, great teachers, great families. It’s a nice place to be.”
The school also provides her free-dom—within the parameters of course requirements—to develop her own curric-ulum. Every fall, Furman engages her stu-dents in a long-term study of birds, which
incorporates lessons on social studies and science, as well as other subjects.
“We do poetry about birds,” she said. During the unit, the class goes bird-
watching and meets people whose jobs involve interacting with birds, she said. The unit has inspired many of her stu-dents (she has about 26 in her class this year) to become avid birdwatchers.
“My son is still talking about Peregrine falcons—that was his bird that he stud-ied,” said Danielle Gates, whose son was in Furman’s class two years ago.
“That particular unit really made my daughter interested in birds,” Hahn said. “Now this kid is probably going to be into birds for her whole life.”
Furman said a parent once asked her, “What’s the deal about birds?” She admit-ted the unit could cover any topic and achieve the same educational objectives.
“It’s just that birds are very intriguing,” she said.
The overall goal is to encourage stu-dents to think and share information with one another and to ask questions, she said. Occasionally, the children’s enthusiasm
extends beyond school. “Sometimes they even get their parents involved and go bird-watching on the weekends,” she said.
Birds also tend to appeal to the wide range of interests found within a 2nd-grade classroom. “Some children think the birds are cute and some children think the raptors are cool,” she explained.
Furman said that getting to know her students’ interests and preferences is the best part of her job.
“They’re endlessly interesting and charming and thought-provoking,” she said of her students. “Each child is unique, and so a really fun part of teaching for me is getting to know them as individuals.”
Theresa Furman.
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Theresa FurmanP.S. 87
160 W. 78th St.
Rodrigo AlonzoThe Speyer Legacy School
15 W. 86th St.and
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OurTownNY.com June 2, 2011 • OUR TOWN • 17
blackboard awards for teachers
Parents Feel Blessed She’s Teaching Their ChildrenOnce she noticed a hand callous and helped change one girl’s education
By Juan DeJesusTaking the time to talk to a parent can
make a huge difference. For 4th-grade teacher Denise Martinez, she makes that difference every day.
Martinez, 33, has lived and breathed teaching for as long as she can remem-ber—especially since her mother is a teacher at another Catholic school.
“I grew up around teachers and I grew up in that environment where the-
ory and techniques were discussed,” said Martinez.
Even the journey she took to become a teacher at the Blessed Sacrament School in the Bronx was meant to be. Martinez’s former grammar school teacher is the principal at the school. So when the sug-gestion came to give the school a call to inquire for a position—it was only natural.
The eight-year veteran teacher has been there ever since. This year, Martinez is seeing her first set of students graduate.
“I remember when they were babies. Now they are young men and women going to high school,” said Martinez.
But for parents at Blessed Sacrament it is her approach to students that sets her apart.
“Her sensitive approach to children with special needs and the reassurance that she embeds in the students is amaz-ing,” said Elizabeth Pineda, whose daugh-
ter took classes with Martinez.Pineda describes Martinez as caring
and very understanding, as well as deter-mined to give students as much help as needed.
She first met Martinez during her daughter’s Individualized Education Program, a mandated plan of action for
children who require a little extra help with schoolwork or therapy.
“It was her keen senses and observation skills that I first noticed
in Ms. Martinez,” said Pineda.Martinez advised the parent and guid-
ed her through the process. The teacher even helped Pineda avoid exhausting her medical insurance.
But it was when Martinez noticed a callous on her daughter’s hand that she really made a difference.
Martinez saw the child’s need for occu-pational therapy. After the evaluation, it was revealed that Pineda’s daughter has
low-tone muscles in her hand, which tire easily. The teacher made every effort to sit next to Pineda’s daughter and take notes for her when the girl’s hand tired.
Martinez arrives at the school early, making herself available to students for any extra help they may need. She is also known for her ability to speak to the par-ents in a caring and compassionate way about issues concerning their children. She fosters an environment of learning through cooperation and participation in all aspects of her students’ lives.
Parents notice this caring nature, especially Pineda, whose only regret is that her son is transferring so he will not get to learn from the woman who empowered her daughter and let her suc-ceed at life.
“I never thought that I made that much of a difference. I know that I made a dif-ference in their daily lives. But it’s a great feeling to know that when a child leaves a class they still have me in their hearts,” said Martinez.
Denise Martinez.
Bringing the World Together in the ClassroomCharter teacher focuses on building community with students from many countriesBy Rosaleen Ortiz
Growing up in suburban New Jersey, Lindsay Korn fell in love with books in Ms. Crowley’s 1st-grade classroom. By the time she was in 2nd grade, her mind was made up: She would be a teacher. Years later, while a student at Northeastern University in Boston, she discovered urban teaching and set her eyes on the Big Apple.
Korn, 27, has been teaching in New York City schools for the last four years, most recently 2nd grade at Long Island City’s eco-themed Growing Up Green Charter School.
Korn says she can’t imagine doing anything else.
“What I love about teaching is the interaction with all different types of people,” she said. “I have learned so much from our kids.”
Teaching in one of the most diverse counties in the country means that Korn has learned to say hello in languages she’d never heard before, and has sampled a lot of unfamiliar food. She’s learned about families of young immigrants who made their way to Queens from countries in South America and North Africa, while
others trace their lives in the city back five generations.
Korn hopes the lessons learned from such a diverse community are not lost in the kids.
“The most important part of my class-room is the community that we build,” she said. “It’s really amazing to see how much they actually care for each other even though they come from vastly different backgrounds.”
Growing Up Green’s principal Matthew Greenberg said Korn has built “terrific
relationships with the chil-dren and the families in her class.”
Parent Ellen Greenberg (no relation to the princi-pal) said Korn is respon-sive to parents, answering
texts at 10 p.m.“I’m an obsessive sort of a neurotic
mother and I worry about stuff,” said Greenberg, whose 7-year-old son Jason is in Korn’s 2nd-grade classroom. “Teachers are overwhelmed every day at the class-room, but she takes the time to make sure the parents know what’s going on.”
Greenberg remembers a day when Jason was upset because she wasn’t
accompanying him on a school outing. She said Korn sent her a picture of her son smiling and having fun.
“Parents want to be able to help, but a lot of them don’t know how or what to do,” said Korn. In keeping with school policy, she sends a weekly newsletter to parents detailing what the students will be working on the following week.
“If [parents] are constantly aware about what is happening in the class-room then they can help their children at home,” she explained.
This week, Korn’s 28 students will be working on final drafts of their non-fic-tion books.
They’ve also created real-estate bro-chures exploring the benefits of living in a rural, suburban or urban community. Korn’s students learned about New York City’s history by putting on a school play; the kids created their own cos-tumes and props. And they are grasping the concept of fractions by cutting up pieces of clay.
“I’m a very hands-on teacher. I think learning should be very messy,” said Korn.
Luckily for her, Growing Up Green is a fairly new school that encourages cre-ativity and social interactions, she said.
Korn and two colleagues designed the 2nd-grade curriculum from scratch last summer. Prior to that, the school only had kindergarten and 1st-grade programs.
Korn moved up a grade to 2nd this year, together with her class.
Second grade has become her favorite grade to teach because, she said, kids can grasp more difficult concepts, yet they are still wide-eyed and eager to learn.
She said she hopes that when her stu-dents move on from her classroom that they’ve mastered kindness and learned to always “look at the world through other people’s eyes, not just their own.”
Lindsay Korn.
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Lindsay KornGrowing Up Green
Charter School39-37 28th St., Queens
Denise MartinezBlessed Sacrament School
1160 Beach Ave., Bronx
18 • OUR TOWN • June 2, 2011 NEWS YOU LIVE BY
Robots, Math & RecyclingHelping teachers teach math and making sure the school recycles
By Rochana RapkinsThis year, students from P.S. 11 in
Clinton Hill took first place honors in Brooklyn’s first Lego League robotics competition. The girls and boys on the team partnered with volunteers from the Polytechnic Institute of New York University, and built and programmed robots to push a pacemaker toward a heart constructed out of Lego blocks.
At the program’s helm is coach Rasheda Lyons, 34. She has been at the school—which was once plagued by low attendance and standardized test scores—for 13 years.
“I feel that I’m exposing them to engi-neering and the sciences so they might later remember this experience and con-sider careers that they may not have thought of,” said Lyons.
“Not only is she an exceptional teacher, she is also an inspira-tional and motivational icon in the school,” wrote a colleague who nominated her for a Blackboard Award. He credits her with spear-heading a recycling campaign, creat-ing monthly math challenges posted throughout the school and leading the robotics team to victory.
Lyons’ primary job, however, is to teach others how to teach. She took on the role of data specialist and math coach
after teaching 4th and 5th grades for nine years. She helps other teachers with les-son planning, and gives workshops on math instruction.
“Oftentimes, teachers are math pho-bic, and I figured I would be able to help them present the instruction to students in a way that is fun and exciting and inno-
vative—and in line with what research is show-ing,” she said.
She can also be found coaching struggling stu-dents in math during the extended day, keeping
the peace in the cafeteria during lunch and leading a recycling initiative. She got teachers, custodians and students on board, and established student “recy-cling patrols.” When the patrols find recycling bins that are uncontaminated by waste, they can earn a pizza or ice cream party.
Lyons also coordinates the school’s annual oratory contest. Fourth- and
5th-grade students memorize famous speeches by the likes of John F. Kennedy, Sojourner Truth and Oprah Winfrey, and recite them at an assembly. In the pro-cess they learn enunciation skills, disci-pline and self-confidence, Lyons said.
“Those are the qualities they need if they are going to be teachers and doctors and lawyers,” she said. “They have to be able to convey ideas in a way that com-mands the audience.”
Outside of school, Lyons enjoys bik-ing, reading and going on long walks. And in four weeks she is getting married. She plans to spend the month of July on her honeymoon. Asked about her future plans, she appears torn. She sees her-self as an agent of change in the class-room, and is thinking about a career in school administration. Yet she still feels the lure of working with students in the classroom.
“I also miss my students in the class-room,” she said. “I miss the family you create in a classroom full of your babies.”
Rasheda Lyons.
30 Individual ConnectionsThird-grade teacher at P.S. 40 finds time for each student in large classBy Annie Lubin
At 8:20 am, Linda Adler walks into her 3rd-grade classroom in P.S. 40 and begins her favorite part of the day.
With her soothing voice, enthusiastic demeanor and engaging persona, it seems like everything about Adler, 32, screams teacher of the year. For Adler, teaching was not her first career choice, but after more than six years, she now says with resounding confidence that teaching is the only career she ever wants.
“The best part of the job, for me, is seeing that “aha moment.” The light bulb clicks, and they make a con-nection or figure something new out… The first time I saw that aha moment I said, ‘Oh wow, this is for me,’” said Adler, who, with 30 students, proudly added, “I see that at least 30 times a day.”
Adler’s long path towards teach-ing began at the Bronx High School of Science, where she became interested in horticulture, and later studied plant sci-ences at Cornell University. New York Botanical Gardens, where she taught
children about plants and gardening. Upon graduation, she worked at the Conservatory at the New York Botanical Gardens. She enjoyed the work but grew bored.
“It was mostly just me and the plants,” she said. Adler took a research position at Cornell University studying soil nem-atodes (worms), but once again grew
bored from the limited human interaction the job entailed.
She realized that what she loved most about working at the Botanical
Gardens was her time spent engaging with children.
So Adler enrolled at Bank Street for her masters in education.
“I feel like you need to understand my background to understand my teaching style,” said Adler.
And for Adler, that teaching style is a mix of passion, curiosity, engagement and genuine interest in the subject matter.
“A good teacher is someone who finds a way to connect to every student in the class,” Adler said. “Some kids are dis-
couraged by school and you have to find a way to reach them. You learn about their interests and their strengths and you use this to make a connection with them. You find out that a student who struggles in school loves SpongeBob and you use that to help them.”
The parents who nominated Adler for the Blackboard Award said she indeed has the ability to connect to each student, which is sometimes rare in the tumultu-ousness that comes from teaching chil-dren of such a young age, but even rarer when those children are part of a class that is made up of 30 students.
Parents say Adler challenges and encourages students, giving them the confidence to excel in areas where they once had trouble. Their parents are star-tled that their children actually look for-ward to going to school.
“You can walk into Linda’s room any-time and students are always engaged and loving learning,” said Susan Felder, principal of P.S. 40.
But for the school’s principal, it’s something more.
“Third graders are at the age when
they are passionate about learning. Linda is passionate about teaching,” said Felder. “From the beginning she had the intuition and initiative that all good teachers must have.”
Although parents and administrators across the board would love for it to be possible, the traits that make a great teacher cannot be broken down to an exact science. But when a parent can say of a teacher, “If [my son] could have a teacher like Linda Adler (or better yet, Linda Adler herself!) every year through-out his education, I could want for noth-ing more,” then you know you’ve got the right equation.
Linda Adler.Linda AdlerP.S. 40
319 E. 19th St.
Rasheda LyonsP.S. 11, Purvis J. Behan
Elementary School419 Waverly Ave., Brooklyn
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blackboard awards for teachers
OurTownNY.com June 2, 2011 • OUR TOWN • 19
blackboard awards for teachers
Teaching Spanish to PreschoolersSome students start without knowing any words while others are fluent
By Annie LubinRosa Torres took a leap of faith in 2005
when she accepted a job as a Spanish immersion teacher at the newly opened International School of Brooklyn. Torres had no veteran teachers from whom to learn how to best teach the students in her early childhood classes. There were no proven methods or surefire tactics for teaching in such a progressive environment. But Torres took the freedom and flexibility that the
school provided and ran with it.That leap of faith turned out to be the
best move for Torres, who is now able to pursue her chosen career with the added bonus of giving her young students an appreciation for her own Spanish culture.
“I love teaching in general,” said Torres. “And here I’m able to transmit that love for learning and for being bilin-gual and for expressing the rewards in exploring other peoples’ cultures.”
Torres, 27, grew up in the Dominican Republic and moved to the United States about 10 years ago. Her background gives her the ability to know what the stu-dents are going through in trying to learn a new language, and the experience to know how to best help. “For me, coming here and not knowing English was a very hard transition,” said Torres. “I keep that in con-sideration every time I teach. I always try to make the experience of learning a sec-ond language as smooth as possible.”
For children of such a young age,
encounters with a foreign language can sometimes be a scary and isolating expe-rience. Although young children are best equipped to pick up a second lan-guage, the experience of walking into a classroom where the only language spoken is an unfamiliar one can be very intimidating.
Torres believes that the key to teaching a language without overwhelming the children is to go about the process in a play-ful way. “We really have to make it very
fun for them,” she said.“The program is very focused on the
whole idea of exploration and inquiry-based teaching,” said Torres. She has found that the best results come when the children can explore the language and materials in a hands-on way. Torres focus-es on projects, songs, books and art that “transmit the love for Spanish culture.”
Because of the nature of the immer-sion program, Torres has the added task
of having to get through to a group of stu-dents with a wide range of comfort abil-ity with the language. Some come in to school on the first day not even knowing how to say hello in Spanish, while others come from Spanish-speaking homes or from prior exposure to the language.
“The students in her classes have grown academically, social-emotionally and linguistically under her great care and guidance,” said the school’s director, Rebecca Skinner. “Her own curiosity for learning is contagious.”
As one parent described, these are 3- and 4-year-olds who come into school knowing only a few Spanish words picked up from Nickelodeon shows, and who leave school at the end of the year speaking complete sentences.
But for Torres, it is a career that is more rewarding than she ever thought possible. “I have the freedom of being who I am and designing my material and curriculum,” said Torres. “We teach what the kids are interested in learning… This is the kind of job everyone wishes they had.”
Rosa Torres tries to make learning a sec-ond language as easy as possible.
Immigration Lessons on an Island: StatenTourists from around the world were impressed with her class projectBy Juan DeJesus
Third-grade teacher Maryann Diglio prides herself on giving each child indi-vidual attention so her students can expe-rience the greatest amount of success and maximize their learning.
The 52-year-old Staten Island resident came to teaching at a later point in her life. Diglio earned a bachelors degree in accounting from St. Francis College in 1981. But after 10 years of crunching num-bers at Ernst & Whinney, which later became Ernst & Young, she knew she wanted to do more with her life.
“I always wanted to be a teacher. I was never comfortable in that field. I felt that I never gave back. When my children got older, I took the chance to go back to school and do what I love,” said Diglio.
Diglio earned a masters degree in 2004 from the College of Staten Island, allow-ing her to enter the world she knew she was destined to be a part of.
“Ms. Diglio always had a curiosity about teaching and learning. Her ability to look
at learning and differentiated instruction systematically has grown tremendously,” said Patricia Lynch, director of studies at Staten Island Academy, a private school.
After coming to Staten Island Academy, Diglio quickly adopted a workshop model. The teacher empha-sizes hands-on learning from her pupils. A quick lesson starts the class, followed by students breaking into groups or off on their own.
The teacher lets the students develop ideas that are later presented to the entire class. If she sees that students are having a hard time, Diglio will prepare a mini-lesson
to help focus their understanding.“All the children and parents feel that
Ms. Diglio honors their experiences and their voices, no matter how soft the voic-es or how diverse the experiences,” said Lynch.
Diglio even describes her teaching as a learning experience.
“I’m a learner myself,” she said. “I love learning. I’m very curious and the stu-
dents feed off my passion.”Diglio’s lessons are plucked directly
from newspapers, magazines and litera-ture, but she excels at using the pupils’ natural curiosity to expand on their learn-ing experience.
“Maryann developed an immigration study three years ago that has grown yearly in depth, integration and complex-ity. Her students had the honor of having their picture books hanging on display at Ellis Island,” said Lynch.
The picture books were made after the students conducted interviews with immigrants who are school parents. The project was a huge success, even surpris-ing the teacher.
“The ranger called me up and said it was so magnificent. It was the most looked-at display. People all over the world were looking at the books. At one point the rangers were afraid of the books breaking,” said Diglio.
But the point the teacher got from that experience was very simple.
“We all touch someone. These people from other countries were being touched by something these children worked on.
That is a great lesson,” said Diglio.Even with the success of her students,
Diglio continues to read studies and oth-er materials to better prepare herself to meet the needs of her students.
“Maryann understands that teaching is a never-ending challenge with new research constantly arriving. Maryann retains her curiosity as her fund of knowledge expands, which is why she is a truly lifelong learner,” said Lynch.
“Every child is worth it,” said Diglio. “It’s worth all the attention and the care you put in. It is really all about the kids.”
Maryann Diglio started off in accounting before following her passion for teaching.Maryann Diglio
Staten Island Academy715 Todt Hill Rd.,
Staten Island
Rosa TorresInternational School of Brooklyn
477 Court St., Brooklyn
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20 • OUR TOWN • June 2, 2011 NEWS YOU LIVE BY
From ‘Runt’ to Fitness Pied PiperDe Matteo has added sports teams by the dozens to MAT
By Max SarinskyJohn De Matteo didn’t move far when
he quit his job on Wall Street eight years ago to become athletic director at P.S. 126 in Chinatown. But the two jobs could have been a world apart.
“I knew I wanted to be in a school that didn’t really have anything,” De Matteo said about his decision. The school had almost no competitive sports program at the time, but De Matteo set his sights high.
“I said I wanted to build a sports pro-gram like they have in the suburbs,” he said.
So he did, and then some.The school, also called Manhattan
Academy of Technology, currently has over 50 sports teams in over two dozen different sports—from soccer and base-ball to non-traditional sports includ-ing surfing, cycling and table tennis. De Matteo said that 95 percent of students in the K-8 school participate on a sports team.
De Matteo attended elementary school in the Bronx and said that, unlike most physical edu-cation teachers, he did not stand out athletically. He credited this experience with his drive to increase participation in sports.
“I was a scrawny little runt of a kid,” he said. “I feel for these children because I was one of them.”
De Matteo, 37, enforces a strict policy against cutting students from teams. In class, he often teaches students simpler and more accessible versions of popular
sports, like volleyball with beach balls.“Old-school phys ed is over,” he said.
“If we don’t make it fun, we’re going to lose our children.”
In a recent 5th-grade class, De Matteo split the class in two teams and led them in a game involving rolling beanbags at other players’ feet. Players who were hit by a moving beanbag had to do step-ups or jumping jacks before
reentering the game.With assistance via a
grant from the National Football League, De Matteo converted a for-mer supply closet into
a fitness room with exercise bikes con-nected to video game consoles (students who pedal most quickly move fastest in the game). He said that at a time when students were more likely to play video games in their spare time than sports, it was important to cater the activity to their interests.
Susan Crowson, whose son Ben is in 6th grade, described Ben’s experi-ence on the basketball team, noting that
teamwork was constantly reinforced. De Matteo did not coach the team, she said, but his philosophy reigned.
“There were 23 kids on the middle-school basketball team and everybody played the same amount,” she said. “[De Matteo] motivates his kids and just really makes them want to try… He brings them all together as a team.”
Jake Jiler, an 8th-grade student and a member of several sports teams, said that physical education with De Matteo is “dif-ferent from my old school.” He explained, “We did the same five things at gym.”
De Matteo said that his next big goal is to expand athletic opportunities to students across the city. He has already founded nine middle-school sports leagues and organizes a track and field meet that draws thousands of partici-pants from over 200 schools. His mission, he said, is to teach students that sports are about more than competition and that, at heart, are about cooperation.
As Crowson explained, “He’s using sports as a tool to teach kids what’s really important.”
John De Matteo’s policy is to never cut a student from a team.
Singing His PraisesHis students go from pre-K to 2, but they perform opera as well as pop By Linnea Covington
Not every kid can say they live in an episode of Glee, but the ones in Stephen Cedermark’s class at P.S. 58 have an elementary version of it, and no one is complaining.
“Through everything he does it’s obvi-ous how much Mr. C truly enjoys sharing his passion for music with our kids,” said Vivian Manning-Schaffel, whose 7-year-old son Dylan is in one of Cedermark’s classes.
Parent Brogan Ganley mirrored the sen-timent and said, “Blossom, my daughter, had such a hard time getting out the door for school, but with chorus in the morning she is at the door telling me to hurry up. We absolutely love him.”
Since Cedermark started at P.S. 58 in Carroll Gardens two years ago, he has taught music to pre-kindergarten through 2nd graders, directed the 2nd- and 3rd- grade choir, and organized the music for 5th-grade graduation. His kids have per-
formed all sorts of songs, from Madonna’s “Holiday,” to Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror,” to Jay-Z’s “Empire State of Mind” and yes, Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing,” a Glee classic—though to be fair, Cedermark said he hasn’t seen the show.
The feeling of gratitude is mutual and for Cedermark, the opportunity to work at the Carroll School has been a dream. He lived in the tri-state area the first 13 years of his life before moving to North Carolina with his family. As soon as he was ready to go to college, Cedermark,
29, knew he had to get back to New York City and pursue the performing arts, which he did at New York University. He still hadn’t found his teaching
path, but when he took a job as a tutor in the America Reads Program, he fell in love with being in the classroom and spending time with kids. So, instead of following a career in lights, he attended Teachers College at Columbia University and shortly after got his first job at a
school in Spanish Harlem. He worked there a year before transferring to P.S. 58.
“This is not a music program in your typical New York City school,” said Cedermark. “And it’s great for me because I wanted to work in a public school where the arts were appreciated.”
The way Cedermark talks about his kids, it sounds like they are teenagers, not 6- to 9-year-olds. He speaks of their harmony and ability to grasp the lyrics of songs. And, because the school has a dual-language program, in this case French (which is also Cedermark’s sec-ond language), he is able to teach his stu-dents songs in both tongues.
“There are kids that are French-speaking and don’t know English at all,” he said, referring to the French, Haitian, Swiss and African immigrants. “It’s nice to help make their transition easier and empower them through song.”
The students even did “The Anvil Chorus” from the Italian opera Il Trovatore, when Cedermark brought in people from the Metropolitan Opera.
He also had Judy Kuhn, who sang in Disney’s 1995 animated film Pocahontas, come in and talk to the kids.
After all, he said, “I feel like my par-ents’ confidence and support in my abil-ity and artistry was important.” And he hopes to help give his students the same encouragement.
Cedermark is in line to be laid off at the end of the year, a prospect he called “nerve racking. I am hoping the mayor does what’s in the best interest of the children… The budget could be refined in many ways that could save teachers.”
Stephen Cedermark.
Stephen CedermarkCarroll School, P.S. 58
330 Smith St., Brooklyn
John De MatteoP.S. 126/I.S. 126-Manhattan
Academy of Technology80 Catherine St.
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blackboard awards for teachers
OurTownNY.com June 2, 2011 • OUR TOWN • 21
Cultivating Writers and GardensHill also directs students in the school’s musicals
By Alan KrawitzAs one of the first teachers at Columbia
Secondary School for Math, Science and Engineering, 6th-grade teacher Meredith Hill is having a real impact and teaching much more than English, according to parents, students and colleagues alike.
Hill, 25, began teaching when the school opened in 2007. Advanced stu-dents have the option to also take cours-es at Columbia University, a partner with the city in running the public school.
Hill, who teaches English to about 96 6th graders, said, “It’s simply wonderful being able to have impact on these kids.”
Parent Mark Kerman said Hill is an “extremely enthusiastic teacher who
inspires her students to not only work hard but to also dramatically improve their ver-bal, written and critical-thinking abilities.”
Hill, whose mother was also a public school kindergarten teacher, said almost 50 percent of the school’s students are native Spanish speakers.
Class readings reflect Hill’s focus on social issues. Some recent titles include The Breadwinner, the story of an 11-year-old Afghani girl forced to become the breadwinner of her family in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. Yet another story focused on Mexican siblings crossing the bor-der illegally into the U.S.
“I want to have stu-dents take on writing projects that will have impact,” Hill said, point-ing out that she incorporates online pub-lishing, podcasting and letter writing to public officials as part of the curriculum. “I want to give kids a voice in the world.”
Effective writing, she adds, can be an amazing tool to help kids take action.
“I like to give my kids a forum to use writing for something that matters to them,” she said.
Maria Herrera, PTA co-president and one of the people who nominated Hill for a Blackboard Award, wrote: “Meredith manages her classes in a way that engages the more advanced students while bring-ing the more struggling students along as well… I just can’t think of a more dedicat-ed, able and energetic teacher.”
Drawing upon her background in music and community theater, Hill also coordi-nates the school’s creative arts program. She has directed performances with
casts of 50-plus kids, with recent productions including Thoroughly Modern Millie, Junior and Seussical.
“I like to make the pro-ductions as professional as possible,” she said.
“She is a great English teacher, but has quite a talent as a dancer and theater teacher as well,” wrote one student who nominated Hill.
Having grown up on a horse farm in Haverhill, Mass., Hill wanted her students to have an understanding of how food gets to their table.
So she helped start a rooftop garden
three years ago at the school, tapping a formerly abandoned plot owned by the city, and then attaining a Green Thumb Certification for the garden. “My students get involved in urban landscaping, gar-dening and composting,” Hill said. “We’re planting edibles and I’ve already had the kids make pasta from scratch.”
Eventually, says Hill, her kids will pub-lish their own food magazine.
As a fourth-year teacher, Hill could get laid off this summer, but she sounded more concerned about how the layoffs would affect the school rather than herself.
“If cuts go into effect, it could seri-ously alter the atmosphere at the school,” Hill said. “Kids are our future leaders. We work with them day in and day out. I don’t know why anyone would want to change the great community we have now.”
Hill said the seniority rules are inher-ently unfair. “Kids need consistency and teachers that are professionals,” she said.
She said many new teachers are “incredible” and that teachers should be evaluated more on what they’ve done and their impact on students.
But regardless, Hill says, “I’m not plan-ning on leaving teaching anytime soon.”
Meredith Hill.
Emphasizing the ‘Special’ in Education Young Bronx teacher keeps teens interested in school By Paulette Safdieh
As a high school educator for children with special needs, Anne Looser has giv-en back to the New York City community more than you might expect for her short 29 years. After just five years of teach-ing English literature to the freshmen at Herbert H. Lehman High School in the Bronx, Looser is often praised for her compassionate approach to education.
“I’ve always been interested in social justice issues,” said Looser, who previ-ously worked with the homeless population in Harlem. “Some of the people I worked with couldn’t fill out welfare applications because they couldn’t read.”
These experiences encouraged Looser to pursue a career in education. She grad-uated in 2007 with a master’s degree in Urban Education from Mercy College.
Looser originally wanted to teach his-tory but when offered a position in special
education, she seized the opportunity. “I didn’t know it at the time, but spe-
cial education was an outgrowth of the Civil Rights movement which I had stud-ied over the years,” said Looser. “The movement was all about providing sup-port to those in need. I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that I ended up where I did.”
Looser taught special-education teach-er support services at a south Bronx school before moving to Lehman. She now teaches English and literature to 9th grad-
ers who range between 14 and 17 years old.
Her hard work and dedication are noticed and appreciated by Looser’s colleagues.
“Anne is always ready to lend a hand to fellow educators in need of assistance. She has a wealth of knowl-edge borne from her experiences in the classroom,” said fellow teacher James Rodriguez. “Her easygoing and compas-sionate style makes her a favorite among
her students as they can see that she is someone who cares.”
“I like being involved with what happens with students outside of school,” she said. Looser is a big supporter of extracurricular activities and trusts they can bring out the best in students. “These services are the best ways to get kids learning and reading,” she said, drawing on the Anime Club as an example. “Maybe it’s not Chaucer and Shakespeare, but you can draw kids in and eventually they’ll get there.”
Unlike other newer teachers, Looser is not in danger of losing her job because special education teachers are not being fired, but unfortunately, the school is fac-ing teacher layoffs and has been hit hard by budget cuts. Over the last three years, Lehman lost $6 million and many extra-curricular clubs were slashed.
“I don’t know how it’s functioning,” she said. “We didn’t have that kind of money to begin with.”
Looser, the United Federation of Teachers’ chapter chairperson at the
school, argued that teachers and unions are too often pegged as the problem, and new education policies in New York aren’t helping the children.
“The teachers are on the frontlines every day with our youth,” she said, add-ing that they need to be acknowledged more for their hard work.
Regardless of such frustrations, Looser’s five years at Lehman flew by. “I used to think I would be a history teacher, teach-ing about the revolution,” said Looser. “I quickly realized I’m part of a revolution, not teaching it.”
Anne Looser.
Anne LooserHerbert H. Lehman
High School3000 E. Tremont Ave., Bronx
Meredith HillColumbia Secondary School
for Math, Science and Engineering
425 W. 123rd St.
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22 • OUR TOWN • June 2, 2011 NEWS YOU LIVE BY
blackboard awards for teachers
From Tanzania to Wall StreetMillennium’s biology teacher looks beyond the body and sees the whole student
By Emily Johnson“Life is never dull in a high school, “
Bill LaMonte said with a smile, shoul-dering a bag full of graded tests and set-ting off through the mass of chattering students.
A beaded bracelet peeks out from his sleeve, a souvenir of his days work-ing in a rural Tanzanian village for the Peace Corps. In the 10 years since then,
teaching has taken him to China, India, the Bronx and finally to Millennium High School in the Financial District, where his impact over the last three years has made him one of this year’s Blackboard Award winners.
“I try to show my students what learn-ing is really about,” LaMonte said. “A lot of times kids are so stuck in their bubble of iPods and subways and Starbucks. It’s not just the classroom, it’s the global perspective.”
It’s this focus on educating the whole person rather than simply teaching biol-ogy that has won the admiration of his stu-dents, their parents and his fellow teachers. “Mr LaMonte even inspires the parents,” one of his nominators wrote. “He has been incred-ibly supportive in helping [my son] with academic as well as social issues,” wrote another. Senior Star Estrella, 18, calls him her favorite teacher.
“He’s a really interactive teacher. It’s never, ‘Take out your textbooks and let’s
take notes,’” said Estrella, who took his advanced biology class last year.
Estrella will attend DePauw University this fall on a full scholarship. LaMonte wrote a letter of recommendation for her application.
“Some teachers, when you’re not in their class anymore, they sort of forget you,” she said. “But when he sees me in the hall, he’s always like, ‘Hi, Star. How’re you doing, Star?’ It’s nice.”
As he walks through Millennium’s halls, he stops regularly to check in with the students he passes. “You going to
really try today?” he asks one. “Smile!” he tells another, grinning until he elicits a giggle.
But in the classroom, his upbeat yet firm
demeanor makes it clear who’s in charge.“I think what is so impressive about
him as a teacher is that when you walk into his classroom, more often than not you hear the students talking, not him,” said Sarah Petersen, a fel-low Millennium teacher who was also
posted to Tanzania with LaMonte in the Peace Corps.
Before he came to Millennium, he taught at a school in the Bronx where he worked with students to keep them out of trouble with the law. He also prepared a class of 7th graders for a high-school level standardized science test. Nearly all of them passed.
“He carried the breakdown of the scores around in his pocket for a while,” Petersen said. “He was so proud of them.”
LaMonte has been teaching in New York City long enough that he isn’t in dan-ger of being let go in the new budget cuts, but he still worries about how the cuts will affect the schools.
“Every time we make that choice, it’s against the child’s best interest,” he said.
He says he was honored and surprised to be chosen for a Blackboard.
“And at the same time, slightly embar-rassed too, because I know a lot of other teachers who deserve this recognition,” he said. “I work hard, that’s all I know. I love teaching. It’s a passion and it’s some-thing I want to do until I die.”
Bill LaMonte.
One Part Mom, Another SocratesRenaissance students says she teaches them to think and loves them like a motherBy David Gibbons
By any measure, the Renaissance Charter School is a shining example of its kind in New York City. Thandi Guimaraes is a lynchpin of the school’s success, ful-filling multiple roles
Guimaraes has taught required cours-es in history, government and economics to 11th and 12th graders at Renaissance in Jackson Heights for the past 10 years. She is also senior advisor, ushering each year’s graduating class of about 45 students through their final year of high school. She is a member of the student support team, which deals with individual cases of hardship and discipline, and faculty advisor to the student government.
“She consistently challenges her stu-dents to think deeper and think differ-ently,” said Renaissance principal Stacey Gauthier. “Her demeanor is one of calm-ing strength. She has a quiet way of keeping students’ attention—even when ‘senioritis’ hits.”
Rebekah Oakes said her son, Kadin Wisniewski, worked harder on papers for Guimaraes’ class than any other, and often enthusiastically brought home dis-cussions started there.
“Thandi really made me think—not just analyze and infer but take an idea and think about its larger implications in life,” said Wisniewski, headed to City College. “I’ll always remember one day when she went around the class and
asked everyone what role religion played in their lives… It wasn’t so much the content of our talk that stuck with me but the fact that my
friends and I continued the discussion all day, long after class was finished.”
The Socratic Method is at the core of Guimaraes’ teaching philosophy and practice. In fact, when asked to expound on these, she began with a quote from the ancient Greek philosopher himself: “Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.”
Growing up in Ozone Park, Guimaraes,
who declined to giver her age, recalls observing members of her community from all walks of life helping people in need. Consequently, she decided on a career as a human rights lawyer and was headed for law school after graduating from St. John’s with a B.A. in econom-ics. But her experience teaching adult literacy classes altered her course.
Among her students, “There was one grandmother and another woman who was an ex-addict single mother with sev-eral young children. They did not have high school diplomas, they had large fam-ilies to support, yet they were very deter-mined, hopeful, full of spirit and kind towards one another. It was the best two years of my life to date, and law school took a back seat,” she said.
She got her education masters at Queens College in 1995. After a brief stint in a large high school, she transferred to Renaissance and the rest is history.
For Karen Campos, who graduated with the class of 2010, and is currently completing her freshman year at Boston University’s School of Management,
Guimaraes surpassed her roles as teach-er, senior advisor and mentor, to become a mother figure: “She was always avail-able to listen about academics and per-sonal challenges. When you had no one to share your distresses with, she was always there. She would give you what my friends and I would call ‘the Thandi look’ and you knew you were going to spend a long afternoon in her room after classes were over just talking.”
Thandi Guimaraes.
Thandi GuimaraesRenaissance Charter School
35-59 E. 81st St., Queens
Bill LaMonteMillennium High School
75 Broad St.
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OurTownNY.com June 2, 2011 • OUR TOWN • 23
blackboard awards for teachers
Teacher Looks Beyond the NumbersHer students at Hunter High leave with a love for math By Linnea Covington
Math teacher Eliza Kuberska’s intro to her job was serendipitous. After getting her master’s degree at New York University in 2001, she had already obtained a posi-tion at another school but decided to interview at Hunter College High School anyway. She spoke with David Hankin and described the connec-tion she felt as, “I almost heard music and I realized I found my guru and he was going to teach me.” And now, she does the same for others.
“Ms. Kuberska has taught me so much and her bubbly, enthusiastic personality is absolutely contagious,” said Marianna Zhang, a freshman in the extended hon-ors math class. “She is not afraid of spon-taneity, and, most importantly, she makes a personal connection with every student by walking around the room and looking at us straight in the eye.”
Teaching mathematics isn’t an easy feat, but having a real love for the sub-
ject helps. Kuberska, 35, has always had a math-oriented mind and, she said, as a child her family often discussed the sub-ject. Born in Poland to a chemist father and a literature-loving mother, Kuberska said she caught on to math from a very young age. And when the family moved to New York when she was 17, it helped her
communicate.“Coming here with a
linguistic barrier, I was able to use math as my language, which I could communicate more easily through than English,” she
said from her New Jersey home.In college, Kuberska fell in love with
physics and, as her studies continued, she considered going into math finance. Then 9/11 happened and that career didn’t seem like a viable option. Instead, she decided to try teaching and has never looked back.
“I feel like my work at Hunter is one of the greatest gifts someone could give me,” she said. “The kids feel like part of
my family, and I think they know that I like them and they respond to that.”
Based on the number of comments her students made about her teaching skills, her assessment isn’t far off.
One student nominating her for a Blackboard Award wrote, “You can’t dis-like this woman. She has a great sense of humor, never failing to energize the dead-est, sleep-deprived class, and she’s always glad to help students that are struggling.”
Jessie Frank, who was in her 9th-grade math class, added, “She pushed me harder than any teacher I’ve ever had, but I could only appreciate it and love her more, because it was so undoubtedly evident she had our best interest at heart. She made me want to do well in her class, and her contagious passion for math made me love the subject as well.”
Part of Kuberska’s success is due to her outlook on teaching the subject. She explained that many of her kids had nev-er really learned to study math in middle school. So when they get to high school suddenly the work is much harder, which
makes them think they are bad at it.“A colleague of mine said 80 percent
of the teaching is made up of psychology and the other 20 percent is actual math, and that is absolutely correct,” she said.
For her, personally, she hopes to learn with the kids and improve her own “growth curve.” And one day before she dies, she said she wants to understand the general theory of relativity. If she teaches herself as well as these kids, there is no doubt she will get it.
Eliza Kuberska helps students overcome their fear of math.
Eliza KuberskaHunter College
High School71 E. 94th St.
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By Rosaleen Ortiz It was early January and the sun was
shining on one of the many snowfalls of the season. The sticky snow muffled the sounds of the city as a group of pre-schoolers made angels on a rooftop play-ground in Upper Manhattan.
“They were completely uninhibited. It was a magical day,” recalled Suzanne Mir, a veteran teacher at Corpus Christi School on West 121st Street.
Mir, 63, and a colleague helped their classroom children build a snowman out of three giant snowballs. “And I lifted these things up,” said Mir. “I nearly broke my back.”
For more than two decades, Mir has been dishing out her special brand of pre-K education: equal parts fun, creativ-ity and respect. Twenty-two years ago, Mir and a former Corpus Christi princi-pal drove to Princeton, N.J., and packed a station wagon with $5,000-worth of furni-ture and toys to establish the school’s first pre-K program.
Armed with a degree in early child-hood education, five years in the class-room teaching 1st through 4th grades, and 11 years of experience raising two boys of her own, Mir set out to prove that kids blossom best in an environ-ment that encourages self-expression, mutual respect and, above all else, hav-ing a blast.
She’s become, as Thanhha Lai put it, “a legend among know-it-all parents” in the Columbia University neighborhood.
“Mrs. Mir doesn’t teach so much as inspire,” said Lai, whose daughter An is one of Mir’s students. “My 4-year-old comes home discussing why Obama is our boss, how we need to help the people in the tsunami and what vegetables are seasonal.”
Mir would be the first to tell you she’s one opinionated teacher. After decades of trial and error, she says she’s earned the right. But she admits some of her
insights raise eyebrows: Kids should not be forced to share every-thing (sharing has to evolve) or be best buds
with everyone (they’re required to be nice). Teachers and parents should erase the concept of “good” or “bad” children from their memories (all kids are good, even those who don’t always listen). Children need unrestricted movement (Mir takes her kids outside almost every day). Each child has a voice—kids come to school to learn how to listen.
Mir is also a firm believer that every-one should have their moment in the spot-light. Each morning in her classroom, a
different kid is named “head honcho” for the day. Head honchos are put in charge of tasks like delivering a message to another teacher, dispensing materials to classmates or clearing tables. They also get to choose the activity they’ll do for the day, which includes joining the “Kitchen Workers” or the “Block Builders.”
“I facilitate justice and fair play. I facil-itate love of learning and the joy of work-ing with materials that are going to make a holy mess. And by the way, I don’t clean up those blocks,” said Mir as she glances at a cabinet filled with row after row of neatly packed wooden blocks.
Her ultimate goal, she said, is to build a fun day for the kids who enter her classroom.
Stephanie Pilla, another parent, said her daughter Clementina looks forward to coming to school every day, and even asks about it during holiday breaks. Pilla calls Mir the ideal pre-school teacher because she’s a master at discipline but still encourages play. “And how many teachers,” she added, “would take their whole class onto the roof during a big snowfall to make a snowman?”
She Does It Mir’s WayHarlem pre-school leader sometimes defies conventional wisdom
Suzanne MirCorpus Christi School
535 W. 121st St. Mrs. Mir doesn’t teach so much as in-spire, say parents.
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2 4 • W E S T S I D E S P I R I T • J u n e 2 , 2 0 1 1 N E W S Y O U L I V E B Y
TEACHERS COLLEGE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IS PROUD TO SUPPORT THE 2011 BLACK BOARD AWARDS
WE SALUTE THE TEACHERS AND ADMINISTRATORS
WHO MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN THE LIVES OF
NEW YORK CITY STUDENTS.
STEPHEN CEDERMARKCarroll School PS 58 (MA, 2008, Music and Music Education)
MEREDITH HILLColumbia Secondary School for Math, Science and Engineering(MA, 2011, Teaching of English)
Graduates of Teachers College, Columbia University are impacting the fields of education, health, technology, policy, psychology, behavioral sciences, art administration, communications, and international education.
It’s your turn. www.tc.edu/discover
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WestSideSpirit.com June 2, 2011 • WeSt Side Spirit • 27
By Emily Levy
As parents, we’ve all seen our school-aged kids experience overwhelming frustration when it comes to home-
work. But sometimes it’s not the number of assignments that’s causing stress. After all, who hasn’t seen their child wait until the night before to begin studying for a test or planning a major project? While it’s not uncommon for children to be unreal-istic about how long it takes to complete their assignments, the good news is that a simple time-management technique may be all that’s needed to get your student on track. Here, Emily Levy, owner of the Manhattan-based tutoring service EBL Coaching, offers some tips to help your child get organized and focused:
• Purchase a proper assignment book. You’ll want to make sure the book has
only one day per page, with a section for each class, so that your child has plenty of space to write down assignments.
• Ask your child to organize the page into four columns: ET (estimated time), AT (actual time), O (Order) and D (Done).
• Explain to your child that she only has to write down assignments in the “Assignment” column while at school. Then, after about a 20-minute break after school (enough time for a quick snack), she should begin completing the sheet.
• Start by asking your child to estimate how much time each assignment will take to complete and write it in the ET
(Estimated Time) column. For example, he might predict that it will take 20 min-utes to complete a math worksheet, 40 minutes to study for a spelling test and 35 minutes to answer questions from his sci-ence textbook.
• Next, your child should complete the O (Order) column by ordering the assign-ments based on which one she will do first, second, third, etc. It is generally better for students to do the longer, more complex tasks first, since they tend to have more energy early on. Also, attempting a harder task first leaves time to call a friend or reach out to a parent if they need help.
• Your child should then start working on the first assignment and time herself
to see how long it actually takes, then write that time in the AT (actual time) section. Use an analog clock rather than a digital one so she can visually see the time passing.
• Finally, once each assignment is done and put away, your child should check off the D (Done) column.
A completed assignment book page might look like this:
When students first use this strategy, they often find that there is a large discrep-ancy between the estimated and actual time. However, as they practice, kids will become more realistic about how long tasks actually take to complete, and in essence, build better time-management skills.
Other tips to consider:• Give your child a realistic sense of
how time passes, and help him learn to transition from one activity to the next by using time increments for everyday activ-ities. For example, if he is playing a game on the computer, tell him how much time
he has left to play, and then set a timer near him that will go off when the min-utes have passed.
• Set up a behavior chart or report card goal to help with task initiation and make children aware of distracting hab-its that often delay getting them started. Eventually, these goals should become more automatic and children will no lon-ger need to write them down.
As children progress through school, the demands will grow exponentially as the quantity of work increases: more tests, longer assignments and multi-step projects. The more children practice these strategies, the more efficient they will become at managing their time. Ultimately, their efforts should pay off with continued academic success.
Emily Levy is the owner of EBL Coaching, a specialized one-on-one and small group tutoring service catering to students in Pre-K through 12th grade. For more info, visit eblcoaching.com.
As part of the 2011 World Science Festival, Washington Square Park will transform into a science wonderland Sunday, June 5, complete with interactive
exhibits, games and experiments designed to teach and inspire. Don’t miss this day of free fam-ily fun! For more info, check out worldsciencefestival.com.
Hot Tip of The Week
The Wonderful World of Science
new york family
A Matter of TimeWhen a child is struggling with homework, sometimes all that’s needed is a plan
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ET AT O D Assignment
MATH 20m 35m 4 √
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Complete worksheet
Answer questions on p.40 of book
2 8 • W E S T S I D E S P I R I T • J u n e 2 , 2 0 1 1 N E W S Y O U L I V E B Y
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Bnai Zion supports humanitarian projects in IsraelThe Bnai Zion Medical Center
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We are proud to participate in the Celebrate Israel parade
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30 • west side spirit • May 12, 2011 News YOU LiVe BY
FRIDAY, JUNE 3FILM
Ziggy Played Guitar—The Museum of Art and Design will screen D.A. Pennebaker’s Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, capturing the band on the night of July 3, 1973, on what was purported to be the final appear-ance of Bowie’s legendary glam-rock alter ego. 2 Columbus Circle, 212-299-7777; $10.
SATURDAY, JUNE 4DANCE
City of Dance—10 choreographers present six programs, performed by four companies at the Gotham Dance Festival, plus matinee performances from six emerging dancers and chore-ographers. The Joyce Theater, 175 8th Ave., 212-242-0800; $10+.
SUNDAY, JUNE 5EVENT
Experimental Tribute—The 16th an-nual Vision Festival honors the achieve-ments of 70-year-old free-jazz artist Peter Brötzmann, with seven days of innova-tive experimental music, dance, poetry and art. Abrons Arts Center, 466 Grand
St., visionfestival.org; $30+.
MUSICNew York Premieres—Harpsichordist Elaine Comparone and The Queen’s Chamber Band end their season at St. Mark’s Church In-the-Bowery with an annual program of world and New York premieres. 131 E. 10th St., 212-280-1086; 2:30 p.m., $25.
MONDAY, JUNE 6ART
Nine Decades of Art—The Grace Institute is celebrating the work of Marge Chapman and June Felter, two artists in their nineties, with the new exhibit Two California Artists: Celebrating their 90’s in NYC. 1233 2nd Ave., 212-832-1389; 9 a.m.–9:30 p.m., Free.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 8ThEATER
As It Is In Heaven—3Graces Theater Company presents As It Is In Heaven, a 10th anniversary revival of Arlene Hutton’s play, which portrays an 1830s Shaker community shaken by the arriv-al of a newcomer. Cherry Lane Studio, 38 Commerce St., 212-239-6200; 7 p.m., $18.
Pulp ClassicsPulp Art: The Robert Lesser Collection will feature 90 rare paintings created for the covers of popu-lar fiction magazines in the first half of the 20th century. Bold and eye-catching, these sexy, adventure-charged paint-ings will scale the walls of all four floors of gallery space at the Society of Illustrators. In addition to Lesser’s large-scale paintings, there will also be displayed examples of rare pieces depicting iconic symbols from pulp magazines and cinema from the 1920s thorough the ’50s, including The Shadow, King Kong, Bride of Frankenstein and Doc Savage. 128 E. 63rd St., 212-838-2560; $15.
Friday, June 3 ART
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.Rafael De Soto’s “Softly Creep Softly Kill,” from the Aug. 1947 issue of Detective Tales, is just one of 90 pieces on display at the new Society of Il-lustrator’s exhibit.
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Community Pages JUNE 2, 2011 • 33Community Pages
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34 • west side spirit • May 26, 2011 News YOU LiVe BY
By Laura Hepler TappeWith summer coming, discussion will
soon turn to ways of reducing the strain on the electrical grid. If it is time for you to purchase a new refrigerator, you may expect that your old one will be perma-nently taken off the grid, and that its dis-posal will be environmentally sound. The surprising fact is that neither of these things is necessarily true.
The U.S. Department of Energy esti-mates that if every inefficient refrigera-tor in the U.S. were retired and replaced with a recent, Energy Star-qualified unit, national annual savings would be 38 million megawatt hours—the amount of energy used each year by more than 3 million American households. But first the old refrigerators must actually be retired. Many are sold or kept as a second unit, and when hauled away by retailers, the first stop is often a used appliance dealer. In the end, nearly half of discarded refrigerators stay in opera-tion, either in the U.S. or in the devel-oping world—the most likely spot for refrigerator re-sale.
“Most people don’t realize that the used appliance industry has always sub-sidized appliance disposal. But in most cases, you’re not doing anyone a favor selling them a used appliance,” said Edward Cameron, president of Appliance Recycling Centers of America. “It won’t last that long and it’s not energy efficient. The best way to dispose of old appliances is to generate materials that can be used to create new products.”
Refrigerators that are retired are often not recycled according to law. Refrigerants are a danger to the ozone and a source of global warming, and
federal regulations state that they must be reclaimed or properly destroyed. But there are numerous reports of violations. Releasing the coolant takes less than a minute, and enforcement is difficult.
Even when the recycler complies fully with EPA regulations and carefully dis-poses of all pollutants, much of the refrig-erator, including plastic, glass and foam, will be landfilled. The biggest problem is the insulating foam: CFCs (chlorofluoro-
carbons) and HCFCs (hydrochlorofluo-rocarbons), banned for years in the U.S. for most uses, were used as the blowing agent for insulating foam in refrigerators and freezers until 2005. More refrigerant is housed in the foam than the compres-sor itself, and preventing its release is important both in terms of the ozone and global warming.
To address this, the Environmental Protection Agency launched the Responsible Appliance Disposal (RAD) program in 2006. RAD is a voluntary program designed to help protect the ozone layer and reduce emission of greenhouse gasses. Partners, including utilities, municipalities, retailers and manufacturers, commit to a much high-er standard of appliance recycling. RAD partners encourage appliance owners to permanently retire old, inefficient units, and keep careful records of their disposal process.
In perhaps the most important change from standard processing, RAD part-ners are expected to recover the foam and blowing agents for proper disposal, typically removing the sheets of foam by hand. This greatly reduces the CFCs that are released when an appliance is retired.
“Not only are we protecting the ozone through the RAD program, we are protecting the climate system,” said Evelyn Swain, of the EPA’s Stratospheric Protection Division.
Recycling at this level requires hands-on work and is more expensive. But its labor-intensive nature also provides the welcome by-product of low-skilled jobs with good pay.
“It’s not a process that can be stream-lined. The very nature of the job requires people,” said Tom Schober, program man-ager of the Appliance Recycling Program at Southern California Edison.
As a consumer, your choices can sup-port the EPA’s work and create jobs. Look for retailers and manufacturers that are partners in the RAD program, and confirm that the individual stores in your area are participating. Ask spe-cifically about the haul-away service your retailer uses, and what they do to ensure proper recycling. The New York City Department of Sanitation will pick up and recycle your old refrigerator (but not the foam)—call 311 to schedule an appointment.
With strong consumer demand, your refrigerator’s dirty little secret won’t have to become everyone’s dirty air.
Laura Hepler Tappe is a long-time volunteer on environmental issues and a stay-at-home mom on the Upper East Side.
Your Refrigerator’s Dirty Little Secret
L E T T E R S
Change of Mind To the Editor:
In your second article (“No Plan for More Diversity at Stuy,” May 12) on the decline in diversity within the student bodies at Stuyvesant and Bronx Science high schools since the schools stopped using the Discovery Program—which gave a second chance to students who had just missed scoring high enough on the entrance exam to qualify—you report that Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott, commenting on your first article, told NY1 that the reinstatement of the Discovery Program would do nothing to help increase the extremely low percent-
age of minority students at these schools.Then, further on in the piece when
you asked former Schools Chancellor Rudy Crew about the program, Crew said that it addressed “an issue raised by the NAACP and by the Urban League at that time having to do with access of poor and minority students to the high-prestige high schools in NYC. The missing link was their ability to compete on the entrance exams and
my guess would be that this is no longer a priority to the higher ups.”
Dennis Walcott was the head of the Urban League at the time Crew describes. One might wonder whether now that he is Chancellor instead, his thinking on this important issue has changed.
RichaRd BaRR
Upper West side
Letters have been edited for clarity, style and brevity.
May 19, 2011 Since 1985
‘Sign’ of TimesAt Riverside Park
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Stuyvesant’s Minority Admissions Under Attack
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Elected leaders and education experts question dropping minority enrollments and the Department of Education’s decision to eliminate Discovery Program at Bronx Science and Stuyvesant
and
rew
schw
artz
Part 2 of an Ongoing Investigation with The Amsterdam News
editOriaLexeCutive editOr Allen [email protected] seCtiOns editOr Josh [email protected] rePOrter Megan [email protected] editOr/editOriaL assistant Andrew [email protected] COntriButOrs Nancy J. Brandwein, Alan S. Chartock, Bette Dewing, Jeanne Martinet, Malachy McCourt, Lorraine Duffy Merkl, Josh Perilo,Thomas Pryor
[email protected] Gerry [email protected] OF new Business deveLOPMentDan NewmanassOCiate PuBLisHersSeth L. Miller, Ceil Ainsworthadvertising Manager Marty StronginsPeCiaL PrOjeCts direCtOr Jim KatocinseniOr aCCOunt exeCutives Verne Vergara, Rob Gault, Mike SuscavagedireCtOr OF events & Marketing Joanna Virello [email protected] COOrdinatOr Stephanie MussoMarketing assistant Jessica ChristopherexeCutive assistant OF saLes Jennie [email protected]
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Refrigerators that are retired are often not recycled
according to law.
open forum
WestSideSpirit.com May 26, 2011 • WeSt Side Spirit • 35
By Jeanne MartinetLast Saturday night I witnessed a ran-
dom act of terracism.It started off as a perfect evening at the
home of friends. It was a balmy 72 degrees, with a gentle Hudson River breeze—ideal conditions for eating outside. My fellow dinner guests seemed in particularly good spirits—and why not? Our hostess was a professional chef, so we all knew we were in for a gastronomical treat. Moreover, the hosts’ second-floor terrace was excep-tionally large (by New York standards) and was furnished for maximum guest comfort. Seated at the long wooden din-ing table, we were just begin-ning to enjoy the first few bites of a delectable leg of lamb when suddenly—whzzzt!—a lit cigarette came plummeting down, passing six inches from the host’s ear and landing next to him on the deck.
We all shrieked, then laughed. (It happened to be the night that wacky group of Christians thought the world was going to end, which may have made us a little more jumpy than usual at the sight of fiery objects flying by.) Our host, looking mis-erable, informed us that this kind of thing happened to them on a regular basis, and that sailing cigarette butts were not by any means the worst occurrences. Other kinds of trash, including (horrors) used condoms, had been flung down during dinners. After that we found ourselves glancing upwards every so often at the balconies stretching some 40 floors above us, like Chicken Little waiting for the sky to fall. The sweetness of the eve-ning now seemed tainted with unknown menace. When it began to drizzle, we happily moved inside. The drizzle did not last long, however, and we began to think about moving back out on the terrace for dessert. That’s when it started really pouring—or so we thought. In actuality someone was watering plants on a bal-cony a couple stories up!
The hosts, who had moved into the building recently, confessed that they had chosen this particular apartment because of the spacious terrace; they had anticipated a whole glorious summer of entertaining al fresco. Now, after three months of dealing with the nasty neigh-borly debris, they were thinking of mov-ing. They had never imagined a building
with such high rents would have such low-life tenants. They told us neighbors walking their dogs below them occasion-ally tossed poop up over the railing onto their terrace as well. Complaints to the landlord had been fruitless.
There are, of course, many people (mostly bored teens) who see balcony vandalism as a sport—throwing water balloons or furniture off to see how things will smash, or how people below will scatter. There is even a website where people brag-post about the vari-ous items—bottles, cans, books, mice (to name a few of the tamer ones)—they
enjoy hurling off balconies. In fact, the sheer number of YouTube vid-eos there are of people tossing objects off rooftops and balco-nies suggests an innate impulse of some sort—a compulsion to engage with the laws of gravity. Perhaps the desire to let things fall is a deep-rooted instinct that kicks in when mammals are up
high in open air. Like a chimp throwing down coconuts from the top of a tree.
However, notwithstanding the possi-bility of some sort of terrace envy, or actu-al hostility regarding noise that may be wafting up from the terrace parties below them, the people who are tossing ciga-rette butts in this case are not doing it for fun. Presumably they are just thoughtless individuals, with no idea of the potential consequence of a lit cigarette catapulted into the air. Perhaps in their version of reality, the cigarette ceases to be as soon as it leaves their hands. This kind of social blindness, the lack of conscious-ness about the existence of other people, is sadly a part of our modern urban life.
By the end of the night, as we were enjoying our chocolate cream puffs from the safety of the smaller dining area indoors, we had come to the consen-sus that our hosts were going to have to invest in a protective awning—flame resistant, if not bulletproof. After all, as one man put it, “They do say that good fences make good neighbors.”
“Hmm,” I said, gazing out at the drip-ping sofa cushions on the terrace. “If fences make good neighbors, I guess bal-conies make bad ones.”
Jeanne Martinet, aka Miss Mingle, is the author of seven books on social inter-action. Read her blog at MissMingle.com.
The World is My DumpsterAl fresco dining can be a dangerous thing— depending on your neighbors
citiquette Lessons in inequalityBy Michael Mulgrew
Six decades after the landmark Su-preme Court ruling on educational equality, Brown v. Board of Education, it is outrageous that thousands of New York City children get a graphic lesson in inequality every day when they walk through the doors of their schools.
These are students – from Harlem to Brooklyn, from the South Bronx to Manhattan’s East Village -- who attend co-located schools in buildings where a district school is housed alongside a charter school. In too many cases, there are smart boards, freshly painted walls and small class sizes in the charter school while in the public school there are bro-ken blackboards, crumbling facilities and overcrowded classrooms. Separate and unequal.
In some cases, charter students get disproportionate access to shared facili-ties like the cafeteria or the gym. In one case in Brooklyn, parents at PS 9 raised funds to have a library built and then watched as the Department of Education proposed co-locating a charter school in their building and giving the 160 char-ter students 6.75 hours in the library per week while the 550 to 610 PS 9 students were to get 4.75 hours.
It is not the charter schools that are to blame for this injustice, but the DOE. It is the DOE that comes up with co-location plans and it is the DOE that is responsible for making sure those plans are fair and in compliance with the state’s charter law, which requires an “equitable allocation” of shared facilities. It is the DOE that is fostering inequality in our school system, directly harming children’s education.
That is why the UFT, the NAACP and others sued the DOE to end the practice of co-locations that treat district school students as second-class citizens.
Our lawsuit also seeks to stop the clos-ing of 22 schools because again, the is-sue at stake is equality for our city’s most vulnerable students. Fifteen of the 22 schools were on the list of closing schools last year as well, and after we sued to stop their closure in 2010, we worked with the DOE to come up with a plan to provide extra support to these struggling schools. But the DOE walked away from every promise it made to these schools and never provided any of the help it said it would. Instead, it cynically declared
the schools were performing poorly and moved to close them again in 2011.
It’s another lesson in inequality. These are schools with large numbers of high-needs learners and some of the most dis-advantaged students in our city. These students are as entitled to an education as any other students, yet the DOE refus-es to provide the resources and support needed to teach them, and instead moves to close their schools and push them fur-ther to the margins.
Universal public education is one of the foundations of a democratic soci-ety, an idea pioneered by Americans in the last century and under attack now by “reformers” who think education should be run as a competitive market-place rather than treated as a universal right.
That is why we, as educators, fight for educational equality — we fight for all of our students and all of the children of our city. It is why we are fighting for all children to have equal access to school facilities and why we are fighting to stop the DOE from simply abandoning strug-gling schools and disadvantaged stu-dents. It is why we care not just about teacher layoffs that would devastate education inside the classroom, but also about child care cuts that would push already struggling families into crisis; why we think closing libraries is bad and giving another tax break to the rich is unconscionable. It’s why 20,000 people turned out on May 12 to protest the mayor’s budget and why we will contin-ue to do whatever it takes to pass a city budget that’s fair to all of our students and the citizens of our city.
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