Bank Street Alums Advise Current Students on Career Paths
February 23, 2012 at 2:13 pm 1 comment
L to R: Jonathan Foy, Whendy Carter,Todd Sutler,Meghan Dunn,Natania Kremer, and Keith Berman
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On February 21st the Council of Students and BSCAA sponsored a panel of recent alums, followed by a networking reception.
The panelists were:
Keith Berman, ’03
Keith is the President of Options for College, Inc., and the founder of the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth College Prep program. He has trained over 300 college counselors, placed over 1000 students, and is the keynote speaker at the Pathways program at Columbia, MIT, Wesleyan and Hong Kong U. of Science and Technology. He is a former New York City Teaching Fellow and guidance counselor. He has a BA from Yale in music and linguistics and an Ed.M. from Harvard. As a volunteer, he runs the Bank Street LinkedIn group and Bank Street Network.
Whendy Carter, ’03
Whendy is the founding director of the Church of the Epiphany Day School on the Upper East Side in Manhattan. Prior to founding her school, Whendy gained experience working at a diverse group of companies in the New York area and she taught for a number of years in other early childhood programs in Manhattan Whendy is a graduate of the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts and Tufts University. Most importantly, she is the proud mother of three children, all of whom are now in college or graduate school.
Meghan Dunn, ’08
Meghan Dunn holds an M.S. Ed in General Childhood Education. For the past 7 years she has been teaching at PS 335 in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant. Meghan currently teaches 5th grade and has been looping with this same group of students since they began in first grade. Meghan is a LEAP Fellow (Leadership inEducation Administration Program) in the Department of Education, and the proposed school leader of a new elementary school set to open in Brooklyn in September 2012.
Jonathan Foy, ’02
Jonathan is currently the principal of The Eagle Academy for Young Men located in the Bronx. In 2004, he was the founding principal of the Urban Assembly Academy of History and Citizenship for Young Men (UAAHC), an all-male high school also in the Bronx. Jonathan’s tenure at UAAHC and Eagle make him the longest standing principal of an all-male public high school in the country. Jonathan received his B.A. in history from the University of Maryland at College Park (1993); a M.A. from the City College of New York in Social Studies – Secondary Education (1998); and a Ed.M. from Bank Street College in Educational Leadership (2002). Jonathan was a member of the first cohort of the Aspiring Principal Program in 2003.
Natania Kremer, ’07
Natania was recently honored by the New York Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers. The Association’s annual leadership awards identify individuals who demonstrate a unique commitment and dedication to the social work profession and to the improvement of social and human conditions at the local levels through practice, teaching, writing, research, program development, administration, and advocacy. Natania holds a dual degree from Bank Street in Early Childhood Special Education and the Columbia School of Social Work. She is currently the Director of Early Childhood Support Services and Admissions at the Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services Child Development Center.
Todd Sutler, ’10
Todd is a fifth grade teacher at a New York City public school. From 1998 to 2004, he worked for Merrill Lynch in New York, Toronto and Tokyo as a Vice President in Fixed Income Trading. In the summer of 2004, he left banking to begin investigating opportunities in youth development. Todd joined The Boys’ Club of New York as Director of the After School Academy, a social and academic enrichment program for teenage boys. While pursuing his Master’s in Elementary Education at Bank Street, Todd worked as an apprentice teacher in first grade at Manhattan Country School and third grade at Bank Street’s School for Children. In 2008, Todd was a co-founding teacher of the third grade at Community Roots Charter School in Fort Green, Brooklyn. Two years later, he helped start their fifth grade. Currently, Todd is developing The Odyssey Initiative, a team of teachers tour the 50 states to observe and document the best practices (instructional and structural) that already exist in classrooms and schools across the country. Those teachers would then design a new school to be opened in 2014, with much of the school model being inspired by their research. Todd is also developing a data organization app for teachers called SkillTracker. It is nearing the end of beta testing, and will hopefully be launched at the Apple App Store in May. Finally, this fall, Todd published an editorial in the New York Times SchoolBook section on the need for more discussion about what is already working in American schools.
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Entry filed under: Alumni Accomplishments, leadership, teacher education, Uncategorized. Tags: .
1. Eleanor Traubman | February 23, 2012 at 4:02 pm
This was an incredible event. The panelists were dynamic, genuine, and passionate.
Here were some memorable pieces: (Anyone else want to share highlights?)
* Keith Berman: “No need to be anyone else than who you are during your job search.”
Keith also shared how he carries Bank Street’s emphasis on stepping back to reflect on your practice into everything he does.
* Natania shared her commitment to social justice and the way she engages her staff in reflections around issues of power, privilege, class and race.
* Meghan shared her belief in the importance of teachers having solid relationships with children and families in a school setting. “We need to be experts in children.”
Todd: He suggested that Bank Street faculty show videos to concretize how we can implement Bank Street philosophy and practice in real world settings. Also, Todd made an interesting point that sometimes liberals are not great at P.R. We need to be creative about getting our ideas about education further out into the world. Todd himself is teaching and leading in a way that dispels the myth that poor people need a boot-camp approach to education.
Wendy: “I could boil it [my Bank Street experience] down to three things: paint, clay, and blocks.” As a school director, Wendy starts her day by checking in with each staff member to see how they are doing.
Jonathan: Going to Bank Street enhanced his ability to be reflective on his practices. Jonathan’s focus is on providing excellent education to young men of color.