introducing myself

I’m Jody Cohen, teacher of one of the ESem sections, and I’ll introduce myself by sharing a piece of my educational autobiography.  I grew up in a suburb outside Washington, D.C. and went to a public school system that was and is considered very “successful,” according to such measures as resources and test scores.  I was an attentive and hardworking student through elementary and middle school, a “good girl” who did all my homework, did well on tests, all that.  In high school I lost interest in school, though, until my senior year when I was part of an experimental Humanities program that took up three hours a day and involved a group of teachers who were excited to be creating this innovative teaching and learning opportunity.  I remember watching a film version of O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night and then standing outside for hours discussing what felt like big philosophical questions the film raised about the purpose of human life; we were teachers and students engaged in a dialogue that was meaningful to all of us, and the usual boundaries of class periods, bells, and roles lost their relevance.  I also took a double period of ceramics that year, and this work with clay gave a visceral dimension to my experience as a learner. 

I had no intention of studying education, and did not think much about that Humanities block during college.  It wasn’t until some years later when I was looking for a job and landed one teaching at a high school in New York City that I realized that this experience during my senior year of high school had given me a glimpse into what education could be, and that now I felt compelled to see where that glimpse might take me…