About

posted 11/2007

I’m a 30-year-old print & television journalist who recently decided to become a NYC teacher. I now teach English as a Second Language at a K-5 school in NYC. I was accepted into the New York City Teaching Fellowship and will be chronicling my experience in the program and as a teacher. That is the most detail you will get about where I teach. No schools, teachers, or students will be named.

Over the course of the Fellowship, in interviews, self-reflections and such, I’ve been asked why I chose to change my “exciting” television career and become a teacher. I guess there are a couple different motivators, some of which come from my evolving philosophy on life and education. To be brief:

1. I want to have a positive influence on young people (immigrant youth in particular).
2. I want a job where I could share my love of learning (especially languages).
3. I believe children need teachers who believe in them and will work hard for them.
4. I want a job where I am continually confronting new dynamics and am challenged to learn all the time.
5. I want to spend my summers teaching English in other countries.
6. I want a job where I feel I am making a valuable contribution to society, while not being manipulated into things I don’t want to do or think.

Those are the essential reasons.

Other parts of my life may also drift into this blog from time to time as many significant changes have been going on. Just days after quitting my job to train as a teacher (12 hours a day), I fell and suffered a severe ankle injury, putting me on crutches (and putting my recreational boxing training on immediate hiatus). A week later I turned 30. A week after that, my husband of three years and I bought our first apartment. All during that time I was also searching for a job, going on interviews, and finding time to elevate and ice my leg — talk about multi-tasking!

So, as I begin teaching I’m also beginning physical therapy and am embarking on a new phase in my marriage. Woo..