About

With Guttman students in the rainforest, Ecuador, 2019

Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at Guttman Community College, CUNY. Consultant in NYC/NJ high schools. Mom to two teenagers, two cats, a dog. Lover of beaches and parks.

Curriculum writer, thinker, teacher, activist.

Here’s the long version of my career:

Since undergrad, I have been interested in how curriculum is created, presented, and student responses to the curriculum. That was when I dropped out of the School of Education because I felt their courses and curriculum were not adequately complicating both curriculum and teaching. I changed my major my senior year and forged an interdisciplinary path in which I could study issues of race through art, film, photography, and popular culture (thanks to the UNC Program in Cultural Studies for this option). This interdisciplinary work continues to guide me and my curriculum writing and thinking.

After undergrad, I was a part of an Americorps program called Public Allies in Durham, North Carolina where I worked for the Literacy Through Photography Program (LTP) at Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies. LTP supplemented a school’s curriculum by teaching students how to take, process, and print their own photographs (in a darkroom–it was the 90’s!) as an impetus for writing. I worked with many amazing teachers and students in grades 4-8th. I gained experience in integrating the arts into curriculum, teacher professional development, arts outreach to local organizations, and artists-in-residence programs–all skills that would help me build an arts program at Guttman Community College years later. But all this work in schools made me want to be a classroom teacher, and I moved to NYC alone to do this in 1999.

My first and favorite memory of moving to NYC is driving over the Verrazano Narrows Bridge alone in my packed Toyota. It was around 9pm on a June evening, the sky was a bright summer twilight blue, and I could see across the stretch of the New York Harbor to the Twin Towers glittering on the tip of Manhattan.

After a year of working at the Children’s Museum of Manhattan as a grant writer and a museum educator, I was able to break into teaching through the New York City Teaching Fellows in their inaugural cohort 1. In the fall of 2000, I began my first year of teaching ELA (English Language Arts) for ENL (English as a New Language) at a middle school in Bushwick (the former I.S. 111), but it was closed by the city at the end of that first year. I then moved to Cobble Hill School of American Studies where I taught high school English for 10 years. During my time at Cobble, I finished my Masters in English Education at Brooklyn College, CUNY, and began and finished my doctoral work at Teachers College, Columbia University to study curriculum. While working as the school’s Literacy Coach, I conducted my dissertation research on how English teachers include/exclude students via curricular choices and what students had to say about the curriculum and this inclusion/exclusion. During this time, I rewrote the school’s English curriculum grades 9-12 to make it more culturally responsive to the school’s multi-ethnic student population.

Teaching high school at Cobble was truly a life-changing experience. I learned so much about New York City, Brooklyn, race, class, and myself from my students and my colleagues, who were (and still are) my dear friends and mentors. I had both of my kids while teaching there, and their earliest years were spent at school events and school meetings, being held by students, teachers, and school security. We were a giant family. I feel so lucky to have had that decade in my life to grow into adulthood, my profession, and myself surrounded by such incredible people.

Where it all began: Cobble Hill School of American Studies yearbook, 2003, next to my friend Vanessa, also a New York City Teaching Fellow, cohort 1, who is still teaching in Montreal, Canada.

I left teaching high school for the opportunity to start a brand new community college in the largest urban university system in the world: Stella and Charles Guttman Community College at CUNY. I was hired as a founding faculty member and wrote many of the college’s foundational courses in the First Year Experience and the Liberal Arts and Sciences Program. Guttman prides itself on experiential education and making the city (and the world) our classroom. I go to museums with students, take students to academic conferences to present their work, and conduct classes outside of NYC via our Global Guttman program. This is where I work today. I love my job.

With Guttman students at the International Center of Photography (ICP),
using a fisheye lens on an iPhone camera.

Additionally, several years ago I started consulting with Literacy and Math Matters, which enabled me to get back into the high school setting. I have been working at a large high school in Brooklyn with the English and ENL Departments to support co-teaching, new teachers, differentiation, college readiness, and curriculum writing with a focus on cultural relevance. I have also consulted with Bergen County Schools through Guttman, working with high school teachers on making their curriculum more culturally relevant.

I have spent over 20 years working with students, studying curriculum with a focus on cultural relevance, race, diverse texts, and student engagement, and working on my own teaching practices. I feel this sort of work is never done, and I am lucky to be able to spend my life doing it.