Working with 2e Students
The Beekman School faculty recently completed a 3-part professional development workshop given by The Bridges Graduate School of Cognitive Diversity in Education. The focus was on twice-exceptional (2e) students.
teaching
Princess/Teacher/Citizen Scientist
When I was young and adults asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, my simple response due to my love of Christa McAuliffe, Princess Diana, and the aunt I still look up to today was: princess/astronaut/teacher. In 1986, my elementary teacher rolled a TV into the Science Corner and my classmates and I tearfully watched Christa McAuliffe, the first teacher trained to go into space, die in the Challenger Space Shuttle explosion. Due to the early development of a strong case of self-preservation, I narrowed my future career choices to just princess/teacher. In 2011 Prince William got ma
Lifelong Love of Learning
The Beekman Science Department attended a professional development workshop at Rockefeller University this week. The gorgeous East Side campus boasts 82 research labs and 200 graduate students. It is also home to the RockEdu Science Outreach program.
Using Podcasts to Teach Claim-Evidence-Reasoning (C-E-R) in Science
Many science textbooks define a scientist as someone who asks questions about the natural world and seeks to answer those questions through research, experimentation and collaboration. If this is true, we all start out as scientists.
Teaching Students "Loneliness"
At The Beekman School, English teachers are given the freedom to personalize the curriculum by reading literature that’s not on most high school syllabi. While we don’t neglect the classics, we do spend the first week sizing up a class to determine what texts students might find especially engaging.
Living in Spanish
Learning Spanish, or any foreign language, is great for many reasons. It develops the language center of your brain, which helps you speak, read, and write better in your own language. It teaches grammar. Studies show learning a foreign language can protect against mental deterioration as we age. Some say that learning the melodious sounds and rhythms of another language develop your ear for music. The benefits are many.
A Beginner’s Guide to Art Class
I am an artist-educator actively involved in making socially-engaged art using a variety of technologies and techniques. When I came to The Beekman School to teach drawing and photography three years ago, I was not quite sure how to approach teaching drawing and photography to students who might not be very interested in “art” of any kind.
Serendipitously, I had one very talented and passionate art student in my first class – but his passion was Manga and Anime, and these were art forms that were largely unfamiliar to me.
Beekman: Teaching to the Individual
Our national school system, public and private alike, is designed for keeping a group of students as homogeneous as possible. Even with all of the claims of “teaching to the individual” that a traditional school makes, there has to be a level of keeping everyone in the class at the same pace, leaving some students behind and holding others back. How, then, can you truly teach to the individual?
Failure: An Invaluable Component of a True Education
It is the failures in our lives, rather than the successes, that have guided our way toward expertise. Failure is a profound teacher. The experience of failure can show us how to improve. Success only demonstrates what we’ve already learned. In fact, too much success, coming too easily, can lead to boredom, loss of interest, and over-confidence. When failure is repeatedly experienced, but success still seems possible, people are driven to improve in order to achieve the reward of success. It is the failures themselves that teach us the way to that success.
Faculty Q&A with History Teacher Ian Rusten
Growing up in the artsy neighborhood of Soho, it is no surprise that Ian Rusten set his sights on a career in the arts. While he enjoyed subjects such as history and English, “I liked drawing even more,” he says. However, after teaching English in Korea after college, he caught the teaching bug and went on to earn an M.A. in Education and an M.A. in History, both at Hunter College.
“It’s funny; teaching as a career just never really occurred to me,” he says.
His students are glad that it finally did.
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