TC Today - Teachers College Columbia University

her hand and said ‘There’s nothing in my brain. If you cut
it open you won’t find anything.’” Dabel added the girl to
her Buddy list and soon discovered that the real problems
were going on at home. She focused on self-esteem, telling
the girl to sit up straight in class and to stand in front of the
mirror and tell herself she was smart and beautiful. By the
end of the semester, Dabel says, the girl had begun adding
new adjectives to the list assigned by the teacher: words
such as smart, intelligent, beautiful, sophisticated.
“It’s not just about teaching them that three plus three
equals six,” Dabel says. “It’s really about building relationships
so that you can get to know the student. Because you
don’t know what they don’t know if you don’t know them.”
The Zankel Fellows are not
in it for the money. They’re there
really to help the kids.
~ Susan Masullo, Lecturer,
Tc Reading Specialist program
But while Fellows often work through one-on-one
interaction, they contribute to overall school improvement
as well. At Heritage School last year, the TC reading
specialists, as part of their master’s theses, contributed
insights about teaching literacy gleaned from their experiences.
This year’s specialists, Tina Kafka and Jillian
Richards, have built on that work. And the Fellows, who
hail from all areas of the College, engage in a sharing of
knowledge with one another.
“It’s great, because if we were all coming from the same
program, no one would be bringing anything new to the
table,” says Meghan Chidsey, an anthropology and education
Ed.D. student who will become a Zankel Fellow next year.
good buddies Josh Tecchio, Natasha Bogopolskaya,
Vanessa Dabel and Meghan Chidsey.
Of course, there’s one other major benefit that goes with
the fellowship: the stipend. “I probably wouldn’t have been
able to come to TC if I didn’t get this grant,” said Natasha
Bogopolskaya, a Math Buddy concentrating in child psychology.
“I love what I’m doing, and I’m glad that with that
money comes a task that I enjoy.”
Yet most students say they’d do the program as unpaid
volunteers. “The Zankel Fellows are not in it for the grant
money,” says Susan Masullo, a lecturer in the reading specialist
program who acts as the Heritage fellows’ sponsor.
“They’re there really to help the kids.”
And to enjoy something else that’s equally precious, as well.
“For me, the biggest benefit has really been from individual
connections I’ve made with the kids,” says Kafka,
the reading specialist at Heritage School, who served as a
teacher in California before coming to TC. “Especially the
ones who are difficult,”
Kafka has been particularly encouraged by her success
in breaking the ice with a ninth grade girl who has presented
a number of behavior problems. Recently, given a
chance to spend time with Kafka and others in a special
separate group in the library, the girl not only accepted
but also uncharacteristically completed a required assignment—
writing three sentences. “I’ll be sitting next to
her—she has these big hands—and she’ll just tap the
middle of the back of my hand,” Kafka says. “She’s making
a connection with me and I can’t make a big deal of it, y
but I know.”
For others, the Zankel experience may even be a y
career changer.
“I never thought I’d want to work in a high school,
and now I think I might,” says reading specialist Jillian
Richards. “It hasn’t scared me away.”
40 T C T O D A Y l s p r i n g 2 0 1 1 photographs by Samantha Isom