They Wrote the Book

A Family Tradition

Guided By Imagination

Math Made Magic

Exciting Young Minds

Big Ideas for Little Minds

The Force Is With Her

Talented in Any Language

An Artistic Approach to Learning

A Song in the Classroom

Teacher’s Push to Succeed

The Language of Learning

Active Classroom, Engaged Minds

Vision for a Classroom

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By Mary Stachyra

When expectant mothers Nancy Schulman and Ellen Birnbaum met in the lobby of their Upper East Side apartment building, both sensed a connection. What they didn’t know was that the chance encounter had set the stage for a business relationship and friendship that has lasted 30 years.

When it comes to childrearing, Nancy Schulman and Ellen Birnbaum say parents need to have fun and maintain a sense of humor.

“Working with Ellen is a joy every single day. I never, ever take her for granted,” said Schulman, 58. “We always see things eye to eye.”

Birnbaum, 61, agrees.

“It’s not that we always agree about everything, but most of the time we do because our philosophy is the same and our values are the same,” she said.

Schulman graduated from Syracuse University with a B.A. in education, and attended NYU, where she earned a graduate degree in early childhood education. Birnbaum also attended NYU, where she earned a B.A. in education and in art history and fine arts, and later an M.F.A. in art history. In 1990, Schulman became director at the 92nd Street Y Nursery School, where Birnbaum had worked since 1981, first as a teacher, then as camp director. Seven years later, Schulman asked Birnbaum to step in as assistant director at the school, one of the most highly regarded educational programs for young children in
the city.

Admission to the 92nd Street Y is so competitive that Victoria Goldman, author of The Manhattan Directory of Nursery Schools, dubbed the program “the Harvard of nursery schools.” The school puts heavy emphasis on age-appropriate routines that nourish intellectual, emotional and social growth. As educators, Schulman and Birnbaum received many questions from parents eager to help their children continue developing at home. Over the next 10 years, however, they began to notice an increasing amount of angst and lower amounts of confidence in parents.

“Life has changed. It’s a lot more fast-paced then it used to be,” Schulman said. “When I started teaching, I don’t think there was a word ‘parenting.’ You were just a parent. And now it’s an industry.”

During regular meetings with parents at the school, the two had several discussions about ways to promote early childhood growth. It was during one such meeting that a parent had the idea that inspired Birnbaum and Schulman’s next collaboration.

“They said, ‘Who’s the writer? Because you have a book in this. I’m going to introduce you to my agent,’” Birnbaum recalled. “But when we got the opportunity to write, we thought, ‘Well, we don’t have enough to say!’”

After caring for hundreds of children for decades, the words came easily. For several years, they labored over drafts after hours and on weekends. In 2007, Practical Wisdom for Parents: Demystifying the Preschool Years (Knopf, $24.95) was published. Their book advocated a common sense, intuitive approach to parenting. While school is necessary, they argue, what children learn at home is most important. They emphasize establishing routines that complement lessons learned in nursery school, encouraging independence, setting limits and being a good role model. Most of all, Schulman said, the book stresses the importance of “having fun and a sense of humor.” She urged parents not to second-guess themselves too much.

“There is no such thing as a perfect parent,” she said.

While it’s not unusual for staff to have long tenures at the 92nd Street Y, both Schulman and Birnbaum know that their years of friendship have been decidedly uncommon.

“I think it’s one of the remarkable things about us, that we know how good it is,” Birnbaum said. “Everyone says to us that this is what your next book should be about—your friendship.”

–
Nancy Schulman and Ellen Birnbaum
92nd Street Y Nursery School

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By Lydie Raschka

For parent Sophia Lee, Deirdre Corcoran’s classroom is a delicately balanced social structure that creates just the right climate for learning. A strong base of respect allows Corcoran to be “judiciously playful” with her students.

Deirdre Corcoran invites her Irish father to school to sing folk songs about the immigrant experience.

“She sings and dances with the class, laughs and cries with them, shares her family, heritage and passion with them,” Lee said.

From the perspective of student Julian Shapiro-Barnum, Corcoran is also a teacher who explains things “really, really well.” She was the first teacher to sit at his table after a lesson to make sure that he and his classmates understood the subject—not an easy task in a busy classroom of 27 students.

Corcoran is a Brooklyn native and experienced educator who was nervous about balancing home life and career when she and her husband started a family a decade ago. She thought it would be best to keep home and work separate.

“That’s not what happened and it was the wrong way to look at it,” she said.

On trips with her family, she found herself thinking about what she could bring back to the classroom and share with her students; on field trips with students, she was thinking about what she could bring home and share with family.

“They go hand in hand,” she said. “Just as I want to know about my students’ lives, I want them to know about mine.”

Students have therefore met her 2nd- and 4th-grade daughters, budding Irish step-dancers who join the class on Take Your Daughter to Work Day, and Corcoran’s Irish father, who comes in to sing Irish folk songs about the immigrant experience.

Teaching history through personal stories, whether via folk songs or the diary of a Civil War soldier, works well for this age group, Corcoran has found.

“Emotionally, 5th grade is just the right age to understand, to offer them personal interest stories. They have such empathy for the people of the time,” she said.

To help students further walk in another person’s shoes, she takes them to Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims in Brooklyn, to see a station on the Underground Railroad, and on a day trip to Gettysburg, Penn.

“It’s so fresh to hear these young people start to understand history and to see them empathize with people of the past,” Corcoran said.

Corcoran is married to a fire captain in the New York City Fire Department.

“We care a lot about our city,” she said. “It’s what attracted us to each other—the great reward we feel in helping others.”

The couple is surrounded by extended family in Brooklyn: parents, in-laws, sisters, nieces and nephews. They enjoy biking, relaxing at the beach and exploring New York City’s many playgrounds with their daughters.

Teaching is also a family tradition. Corcoran’s singer-songwriter father taught high school history and her sister is a teacher, too.

“It’s in our blood,” Corcoran said. “I think of it as a calling.”

–

Deirdre Corcoran
5th grade, P.S. 321

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By Lydie Raschka

Gabriela Klassen is reluctant to share her secrets of time management—perhaps because they go against the grain in this test-prep, skills-based climate. One trick is to “compact” the basics: spend an entire morning on math, for example, so that the afternoon can be dedicated to projects.

Gabriela Klassen was a professional musician playing in orchestras before she became a teacher.

And projects are the meat and potatoes of Klassen’s curriculum. They spring from extensive interest surveys she administers when she first meets students to get a good sense of the group’s curiosities (Klassen has recently taught the same gifted and talented class from 3rd through 5th grade).

In 3rd grade, a boy wanted to go to China. She developed a series of lessons centered on the New York Chinese Scholar’s Garden, comparing Chinese design principles with the tradition of Western classical architecture. The idea of yin and yang was applied to vocabulary: Kids made lists of opposites. During their visit to the garden, students identified design elements and then designed their own gardens. The study ended with a Chinatown lunch.

An emphasis on architecture is another hallmark of Klassen’s teaching. She has taken summer classes on everything from drafting, design and theory, to model-making and computer-aided design. She first thought about bringing this passion to the classroom when a student said he wanted to climb to the top of the Empire State Building. This launched a survey of architectural structures, from the simplest to the most complex.

“These are structures they can build, make and find all over New York,” she said.

Learning through thematic projects requires lots of planning, something Klassen does when she gets home, after she collapses for an hour or two and takes Mishka, her dog, for a run. Klassen lives with her husband Arnold near the school. In her spare time, she plays violin or Renaissance lute in chamber music ensembles. A previous career playing in orchestras took her from Japan to Italy, but Klassen eventually wanted to settle down. Her younger sister, Helen, suggested teaching: starting at age 14, Klassen began to teach Helen to play violin and continued to do so for 10 years.

Rekha Menon, the parent of one of Klassen’s students, has found that she brings out the best in her son.

“He was advising us on our stock picks in 3rd grade,” Menon said.

In 4th grade, he got into playing piano in a full-length production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In 5th grade, he became fascinated with red-tailed hawks in Central Park.

“My son identifies birds while walking down the street with binoculars,” Menon said. “I don’t think this is something you would find in a standard curriculum.”

Now, Klassen’s 5th graders are deep into reading and writing mysteries—and learning about the musical leitmotifs in North by Northwest, how sound brings about suspense—and they’re working their way through Shakespeare’s Richard III.

Samantha Deutsch, a fellow teacher, is amazed at Klassen’s talents.

“She has a natural ability to channel her student’s own passions—for trains, rocket ships, skyscrapers, butterflies, planets, whatever,” she said. “As a colleague, I learn something every time I walk through her door.”

–

Gabriela Klassen
5th grade, P.S. 145

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By Lydie Raschka

Fifth-grade teacher Tracy Nemiroff breaks the math nerd mold.

“She’s not what you’d expect,” said parent Claudine May-Gomez. “Tiny, beautiful, little, pretty—and she loves math!”

Tracy Nemiroff is an advocate for gifted students, arguing that the challenges they face are often overlooked.

But this math lover also has a reputation for being tough.

“I demand a lot. I give them really hard problems,” Nemiroff said.

“A lot of parents complain,” May-Gomez said. “‘She’s too hard,’ ‘There’s too much homework,’ but she doesn’t care. She does what’s best for the kids.”

This does not mean letting her students fend for themselves, however. Nemiroff answers emails after school if kids need help, has them practice for state and national math tests until test taking feels like a walk in the park and defuses math anxiety with singing, dancing and rapping—like the introductory rap she performs on the first day of school:

I’m from Miami, so I’m used to the heat,

When the snow comes down, I get frozen feet.

On parents’ night, Nemiroff hands out a questionnaire. Parent Min Miller took notice. Never before had a teacher asked, “Is your child afraid of math?” Miller’s daughter, Maeve, was indeed a little afraid. She had been surprised to get 60 percent on her first math test of the year. Many gifted kids enjoy good test scores and so had Maeve, but Nemiroff is interested in chipping away at the gifted child’s tendency toward perfectionism.

“I want them to take risks, to know it’s OK to make mistakes,” she said. “It is what students do with their mistakes and struggles that defines them as learners and makes them most successful.”

Emphasis is placed on problem solving that draws on all of a child’s accumulated math knowledge. For Maeve, this teaching strategy has worked, and she’s back in the 90 percent range.

“Maeve has such confidence in math,” Miller said.

Maeve adds, “Ms. Nemiroff makes it fun, like there’s nothing to it, so you’re not scared.”

Math inventions are one way of keeping it fun. Student projects have included designs for a mathematical keyboard, an electric protractor, a digital ruler and a baseball mitt that measures speed upon impact. As a gifted child herself, Nemiroff felt “pushed to make sure I got everything right.” She wants her students to take chances.

“That’s when I see them coming alive,” she said. “That’s when I see the most progress.”

Upon graduation from Emory University, in Atlanta, Nemiroff moved to New York City with her fiancé. She taught at NEST+m for two years before a slot opened up at the Anderson School, where she’s been for three years. She is a member of MENSA, the organization for people with high IQs, and uses puzzles and problems from MENSA’s newsletters in her classroom. She is an advocate for gifted kids.

“Often gifted kids get overlooked for the challenges they go through,” she said.

“People think they have anything and everything given to them, but they have problems and pressures just like everyone else.”

In spite of the rigor of her approach, Nemiroff tries to keep math light and relevant with questions like, “Why would Derek Jeter and David Wright use the Pythagorean theorem in their work?”

This summer, her math skills will be particularly relevant and handy as she, and her fiancé, plan their wedding.

–
Tracy Nemiroff
5th grade, The Anderson School

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By Shannon Geis

Lauren McIntyre, 25, says she loves teaching 4th grade because students are just old enough to be independent, but young enough to still be excited by education.

“They are like sponges,” said McIntyre, who has been teaching at P.S. 166 for four years. “They are into everything and always want to learn more.”

Lauren McIntyre says parents and P.S. 166 colleagues are a big part of her classroom success.

McIntyre, a graduate of Fordham University, said she wanted to be a teacher since she was little. In high school, she worked with many programs that allowed her to teach younger students.

“I just loved helping others learn new things,” she said. “It’s just so rewarding.”

The New Jersey native said she also enjoys making a personal connection with each student. Former students come back and have lunch with her to catch up.

“It’s very rewarding to have developed that kind of relationship with my students,” she said.

One former student, Robbie Frants, said, “Fourth grade was the best year at P.S. 166 I ever had.”

McIntyre uses facial expressions as an innovative way to catch students’ attention.

“She might open her mouth wide in surprise if she asks a really simple math problem and no one raises their hand. She knows that we all know the answer,” said Anna Frants, a current student in McIntyre’s class. “It’s funny. It makes us laugh and it makes kids start thinking more and pay attention.”

McIntyre is also particularly proud of her read-aloud voices.

“My students always tell me that the voices I make when I’m reading books out loud are wonderful,” she said.

Julia Weston Frants, Anna’s and Robbie’s mother, said it is obvious how much time and care McIntyre puts into her class.

“I’ve noticed that she has a rich appreciation for the material that she presents,” Frants said. “She makes things understandable. She doesn’t lecture. She just has the right touch, the humorous touch. But she still commands their respect. She is attuned to how they need to learn. ”

Connections with P.S. 166 colleagues and parents are also a big part of her classroom.

“I have been very lucky with my colleagues. We are great at working together and everyone is very supportive,” McIntyre said. “The parents are also great with giving me feedback and helping out with projects.”

McIntyre, who is engaged and currently lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn, said all she can hope for is to continue making an impact on students’ lives.

“I want to try to make sure that every day, my students leave differently than they came in,” she said, “whether that means they learned something new, or overcame an obstacle.”

–

Lauren McIntyre
4th grade, P.S. 166

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By Aline Reynolds

Five-year-olds at P.S. 187 in Washington Heights are learning how to recycle and bake croissants—in addition, of course, to the basics of reading and writing.

Their teacher, Jill Hovde, developed a passion for teaching back in college, when she taught children about nocturnal animals and how to care for injured hawks at the Delaware Nature Society.

After a door-decorating project, Jill Hovde taught her kindergarteners about Van Gogh’s sunflower paintings.

“I really liked the hands-on environmental work with the kids,” she said.

Born and raised in Rockland County, Hovde earned a bachelor’s degree at the University of Delaware and her master’s degree in special education at St. Thomas Aquinas College. She also completed a master’s “Plus 30” program in art history at SUNY Purchase.

Now in her 18th year at P.S. 187, Hovde frequently integrates art into the kindergarten curriculum. She taught students about Van Gogh’s sunflower paintings at the conclusion of a grade-wide door decoration project.

“My daughter comes home and talks about the Impressionist painters,” said Anya Mateo, a parent of one of Hovde’s students. “I didn’t learn about them until I was a teen.”

Mateo decided against home-
schooling her 5-year-old daughter, Ana, as she does her 6-year-old son, Yuri, because of Hovde.

“She weaves all these separate facts into this big picture of the world,” Mateo said.

Hovde says her own 5th-grade teacher, Judith Factor, is her academic inspiration.

“Ms. Factor made me love school,” she said. “It was a very creative, project-based class.”

Many of the projects Hovde works on today incorporate the expertise of parents, who are regularly invited into the classroom. Mateo, a licensed pharmacist, coordinated and taught a lesson on the different phases of the moon as part of a gardening project. On Cinco de Mayo, the class discussed Mexico’s independence and made guacamole from scratch with the help of food stylist Lisa Homa, whose 5-year-old son, Ellis, loves Hovde’s class.

“I can read better because of Ms. Hovde,” Ellis said. “And she lets us make ice cream sundaes.”

Ellis’ handwriting, his mother pointed out, is much clearer now than it was earlier in the school year.

“Ms. Hovde was very encouraging, writing special notes when he improved,” she said.

Hovde’s class also gets to experience the outdoors. On walks in the park, she talks about the geometrics of fire hydrants, stop signs and streetlights. The kindergarteners took weekly trips to nearby Bennett Park for a gardening project, in which they cultivated plants and built a mosaic birdbath.

“We do a lot of activities rather than just rote learning,” Hovde said. “It individualizes the curriculum for each of them.”

The P.S. 187 kindergarteners are also stepping up their vocabulary, learning words like “ascend” and “composure.”

“I’ll draw a circle around my face with my fingers and pull my hands down over my face,” Hovde said. “They did that for two weeks and totally got it. It’s amazing to watch them learn… you know you’ve opened the world to them.”

–
Jill Hovde
Kindergarten, P.S. 187

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By Lydie Raschka

Kindergarten teacher Brenda Davis is known, respectfully, as the “Jedi Master of early childhood teachers” by the parents who revere her—a few of whom were in her classroom when they were 5 and 6 years old. Davis learned her craft through years of practice, training and dedication. She is described as “artful,” “wise,” “focused” and “patient.”

Brenda Davis says she likes working with kindergartners because “they tell you the truth whether you want to hear it or not.”

“It’s better as I’ve gotten older,” she said. “I have much more patience with children than adults.”

Yet the adults at P.S. 180 watch and learn.

“As a parent, you drink it up and try to take notes,” said Megan Berry. “Her skill is the result of someone who has been showing up for everything for years.”

After a dissatisfying foray in the business world, Davis worked in daycare for 10 years. She ventured into the public school system as a substitute, schlepping a bag of activities suitable for kindergartners through middle schoolers because of her constantly changing assignments. But her heart has always been with the youngest ones.

“I always liked the early grades,” she said. “They tell you the truth whether you want to hear it or not.”

Davis has seen at least six principals come and go in her 21 years at P.S. 180. One of her biggest challenges has been adapting to those who arrive with new methodologies and trends.

“That has been a challenge,” she said. “Sometimes they didn’t have elementary school experience. I’ve had to learn to be more flexible. I used to have much more fixed ideas. As I get older, I see we can reach the same point and come from different directions.”

In many ways, however, Davis is a principal’s dream. She loves to learn and refine her technique. A recent training topic was “differentiated instruction,” or providing students with different avenues to acquire content, based on their interests and abilities.

“Some students are really into dinosaurs,” Davis said, “and I have a lot of block builders this year. You have to feel your group. Each group has a different rhythm and you can’t alter that. I find private moments to sit and talk to them about their interests. There’s a lot of talking in pre-K and K.”

There’s also a lot of going out. She takes her class to the Bronx Zoo, the Transit Museum and Central Park to look for bugs.

Davis has had her own Jedi Masters along the way: a mother “who liked to explain things;” Mrs. Jackson, her 3rd- grade teacher; and a grandmother who was “a great reader.” In college, she had a supportive professor who encouraged her to “keep going forward” when she was inclined to stop with her associate’s degree. Eventually, she earned her master’s from Adelphi University.

A life-long Manhattanite, Davis enjoys swimming, walking and Turner Classic Movies. She has one child and one grandchild and is active in children’s programming at her church. At P.S. 180, alumni can often be found hovering around her door, a testament to her lasting impact.

“Heart, soul and spirit,” she said. “That’s what a child needs nurtured.” 

–
Brenda Davis
Kindergarten, P.S. 180

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By Mirva Lempiainen

When students’ eyes light up and get that “aha!” expression, that’s when Randi Toll realizes how much she loves her job.

“These are the moments I enjoy the most,” she said.

Luckily for Toll, who teaches 1st grade at P.S. 163, “it happens a fair amount.”

Dual-language teacher Randi Toll became fluent in Spanish while working as a nanny in Chiapas, Mexico.

“First grade is really a year when the kids make a huge jump in reading and writing,” she said, adding that literacy is her favorite subject to teach.

A former nanny and product of the New York City Teaching Fellows program, Toll has been teaching for seven years now, three years at P.S. 163 and four at P.S. 153.

“I always wanted to work with kids,” she said.

As a nanny, Toll spent six months in the state of Chiapas, Mexico, which helped her become fluent in Spanish. She now uses those skills in her dual-language classroom, where students study in English on Mondays and Wednesdays, and in Spanish the other days. Some students are Spanish-dominant, some are English-dominant and some are fully bilingual.

“It’s a challenge. We have kids from all different backgrounds,” she said. “They are a very cohesive group so it ends up working well.”

Franziska Castillo, the parent of one of Toll’s students, thinks Toll is a big part of that equation.

“Ms. Toll is so kind and loving that she knows how to help all the children in the class become a unit,” she said. “At home, my daughter notices fractions around the house, and uses vocabulary that surprises her aunts and uncles. It’s all because of Ms. Toll.”

Ellen Schorr, another parent, thinks Toll is everything a 1st-grade teacher should be: smart, creative and fun-loving. Schorr likes that Toll brings creativity into lessons, like making buildings out of marshmallows and using cooking to learn how to measure. But a sense of order always pervades.

“While very warm and affectionate toward the children, she is no pushover,” Schorr said. “She has perfect command over her classroom without ever yelling, threatening, or belittling.”

Toll believes her respectful attitude toward children has something to do with her success in the classroom.

“I connect pretty well with the kids,” she said. “I like to try and talk to them like they are people, not kids.”

Parents also appreciate Toll’s enthusiasm for literature.

“Her love of reading and books rubs off on the kids,” said Carrie Reynolds, a parent. “My daughter is now an avid reader who first learned to read in Spanish before she learned to read in English.”

Reynolds appreciates that Toll celebrates each student’s birthday in class, and even signed the children up for yoga in the classroom.

“Everybody loves her,” Reynolds said.

Toll, too, feels like she is in the right field and cherishes being a teacher.

“There are never any moments when I feel like I should be doing something else,” she said.

–
Randi Toll
1st grade, P.S. 163

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By Lydie Raschka

Every weekday, Karen Kilbane rides her bike from Tribeca to the Upper East Side to teach kindergarten at Hunter College Elementary School.

“She lives for her kindergarten,” said Principal Randy Collins. “Her class is a great way for kids to start school.”

An inventive teacher, one of Karen Kilbane’s lessons brings students to Central Park to make an ecology-based documentary.

Kilbane wasn’t sure she wanted to be a teacher when she first volunteered with children more than a decade ago and became caught up in their “energy, love and excitement” for learning. She had an in at Hunter, a public elementary school for the gifted run by the eponymous CUNY school: Her aunt is a professor of education there. Kilbane was hired as an assistant teacher, still unsure if she wanted to commit her life to teaching. About a month into the job, she knew she’d found her calling.

In her classroom, students learn through the arts—drama, literature, music, film, dance and the visual arts. This may take the form of a mural, based on research about the animals of ancient Egypt and how they relate to the gods, or choreographing and performing in a Broadway-caliber musical about Sekhmet, the Egyptian warr ior goddess. Kilbane’s desire is to “keep every child challenged, interested, happy, learning and growing, in spite of different abilities and needs.”

One approach that has worked well to meet these goals is an ecology-based documentary her class makes about Central Park. The class takes field trips with park rangers. Then they go out in smaller groups and capture footage of their own Central Park discoveries and work with the technology teacher to edit a polished film.

“They share their information,” Kilbane said. “It’s project-based learning and it’s seamless—they don’t even realize it’s science.”

A native of Ohio, Kilbane is admired for her creativity, warmth and love
of learning.

“She loves big projects that involve learning on very deep levels,” said parent Kelly Posner-Gerstenhaber, whose 1st-grade son will find any excuse to go back to visit his kindergarten classroom. “All subjects are seamlessly connected and integrated. If ancient Egypt is the subject area of the year, then Egyptian math and numbers are studied.”

Kilbane brings her own passions to the classroom. She enjoys nature, mythology, gardening, hiking and traveling.

“I’m somewhat of a non-conformist,” she said. “That’s part of why I love Hunter. I’ve never taught anywhere else. The school gives us a lot of freedom to teach the way we want to teach while adhering to benchmarks. These are bright little kids who have so much to say. I try to give them an environment where everyone is learning from each other.”

Kilbane has been at Hunter for 13 years, five of them as a head kindergarten teacher—a long time, and yet just the beginning when compared to her father, who taught middle school in Ohio for 50 years. He is a big proponent of public education and has been a model of “dedication, hard work and passion,” Kilbane said. She follows in his footsteps. When it comes to teaching, she said, “I like the challenge.”

–
Karen Kilbane
Kindergarten, Hunter College Elementary School

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