I am an English teacher who is passionate about literature. Catch me in my AP class and you’ll see that I’m a superb lecturer (though I do stray from literature every so often; see my blog on why I teach Aristotle’s Ethics). In my standard English classes, however, as I have gathered experience over the last 10 years, I have moved away more and more from pure literature, and exposed my students to magazine articles (old and new), op-eds, and other types of non-fiction, like primary source documents such as historical memos, convention resolutions, and legal opinions.
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As teachers, we often spend hours discussing classroom and student problems and how to fix them. A phone call from one of us generally means that something has gone wrong or that some work has gone undone. I probably dread these conversations even more than the student whose parents I’m reaching out to does. I far prefer the quick words shared with a parent as they drop off their kid or getting to know people face-to-face at parent-teacher night. The reason? Teachers (not unlike parents) absolutely love being able to brag about their students’ successes and achievements.
A weighty concern on many teenagers' minds right now is, "How strong is my high school preparation for college?" Certainly, part of the responsibility for college readiness lies with the student: to best prepare for college while in high school, should you take college-level classes in high school or utilize some other tool?
One of the courses I teach, Astronomy, is such a delight. I get to see, again and again, the awe in my students as I show them images and videos of various objects in the universe. Just showing a close up of the Sun’s surface can elicit such gasps from them. And a few of these students have not been outside a metropolitan area with all its light pollution. They have no idea how majestic the night sky is with the Milky Way visible.
“Are you happy?” she said.
I was in my early twenties, working on my masters degree, scraping together money where I could, and trying to figure out what to do next. I was stricken by the question, blindsided, like an interview question it had never occurred to me to prepare for.
Because no one had ever asked me that.
Like most specialized fields, education has its buzzwords. You’ve probably heard a few of them: grit, data-driven, student-centered, inquiry-based, flipped classroom, etc. Despite taking different approaches to education, all of these new perspectives on what teaching and learning could look like seem to be adding up to one big conclusion: college.
As New York City’s oldest and best provider of personalized education, The Beekman School offers small classes averaging 5 to 6 students, as well as one-to-one classes, to college prep high school students on a year-round, rolling admissions basis. Students can begin a course at any time during the day, and be admitted on a part-time or full-time basis.
Please watch this video and contact us for additional information.
“I’ve done my homework and there isn’t another school like you in the whole country!” Yes, that mother is right. Beekman’s ability to personalize a student’s education is unmatched. As our tag line states, “One school. Infinite possibilities.”
Although our college preparatory program follows the same guidelines as larger, more traditionally structured schools, Beekman’s combination of class sizes averaging 6 students, one-to-one courses, and distance learning provides us with opportunities to create a schedule as individualized and unique as each student’s needs.
As the oldest of three, I passed a lot of hand-me-downs to my siblings.
Is that a bird? Is that a plane? No, it’s our Physics Egg Drop Experiment! Every year, after we complete the unit on Forces, Impulse and Momentum, the students in my Physics class have an opportunity to test out their engineering and creativity skills in a project where they are tasked with protecting two eggs from breaking when dropped from the 4th floor of our townhouse building into the garden.