An ad on the NYC subway drove my entire professional career.
In reality, it wasn't a single ad, but a series of ads put out by the NYC Teaching Fellows, encouraging recent graduates and career changers to give teaching in New York City public schools a chance. What I thought would be a two-year stint while I figured out what I wanted to do with my life turned into a 14-year tenure at the NYC Dept. of Education. Fourteen wonderful years, sparked by a long commute from the 4 train from the Bronx to Wall Street, to a job that I didn’t find fulfilling.
Teaching opened a world of possibilities in leadership, learning and development, and self-reflection that I can’t imagine coalescing in any other role.
A few lessons learned during my ten years as a high school math teacher:
• Being good at something does make you good at teaching that subject- time, practice, patience, and experience are necessary components
• Applied knowledge is far more valuable than memorized facts
• Ask your students what they want to learn and how they learn best
• High schoolers are the weirdest, most-thoughtful, and inspirational people to learn with
My interest in using technology to support learners lead me to a role at the NYCDOE central offices. There, my team developed a robust professional learning platform to help teachers improve and advance their practice. Our work impacted over 100,000 NYC educators.
Transitioning to facilitating adult learning reaffirmed my love of helping empower individuals to help themselves. Adult learning taught me a few new lessons.
• Learning needs to be practical and applicable
• Technological tools do not replace well-designed learning experiences
• There is always someone in the room whom you can learn from
As the Head of Learning Experiences at StoryIQ, I take these lessons (and more) to heart as I design courses supporting professionals in upskilling their communication with data and analysis skills. I believe that we all have something to teach, and learning with a community can profoundly impact organizations, big and small. I have the honor of leading a team of trainers and content developers – all of who share the innate curiosity and love of teaching that I have.
No matter who or what I’m teaching, my goal is to spark curiosity and make new skills and concepts accessible to all learners.
