Math for America introduces 21 Queensbased
STEM teachers into 2019 class
BY ANGELICA ACEVEDO
Math for America (MƒA),
an organization committed
to helping accomplished
STEM teachers continue to
thrive, recently welcomed 21
new “master teachers” into
its 2019 class — and they’re
all teaching in Queens.
John Ewing, president of
MƒA, told QNS that the “very
selective” four-year fellowship
is designed to provide
outstanding K-12 teachers
the opportunity to interact
with fellow educators as well
as give them enriching workshops.
But the organization’s
most important mission is
to keep these teachers in the
classroom.
“In addition to keeping
these really great teachers
teaching, we’re trying to
change what teaching feels
like to show that it’s much
more than just standing in
front of the classroom — but
that it’s a real profession,
that it’s respected and that
it’s fun,” Ewing said.
And in order to foster their
fellows’ passion for teaching,
they also provide them with
a yearly $15,000 stipend.
The New York City-based
organization, which is funded
by the Simons Foundation,
has a total of 1,016 members
from public schools across
the five boroughs — with 144
of those being teachers from
63 different schools in the
“World’s Borough.”
One of the newest members
of their community is Andrew
Rodriguez, a seventh-grade
math teacher at Long Island
City’s Hunters Point Community
Middle School.
The Texas native who always
wanted to teach in a
big city — “and it doesn’t get
any bigger than New York,”
Rodriguez said — believes
that MƒA’s mission aligns
perfectly with his own core
values as a teacher.
“It’s my job to help students
problem solve and to
help them become a good
person,” Rodriguez said. “So
I want these things that I’m
learning with MƒA and the
choices that I have in my professional
development modules
to reflect that.”
Rodriguez began his term
Math for America recently welcomed 21 new Queens teachers into their four-year fellowship. Photo courtesy of Math for America
in September, and is currently
taking two workshops
out of the 400 that the fellowship
offers this fall. He began
with one that focuses on effectively
giving his students
feedback, and another group
on compassion and fatigue,
in which he’s “learning how
to take care of myself so that
I can take care of my kids.”
The alumnus of Texas
State University in Saint
Marcos and Relay Graduate
School of Education in New
York City said that the $15,000
stipend is an added bonus.
“I mean, it’s fantastic,”
he said. “I can use that to
improve things in my classroom.
I can use that to just
make sure that I have everything
that I need professionally.
I can use that to also go
to places and learn about other
avenues of education. So,
that really takes away a lot of
the additional stress that you
might have as a classroom
teacher, and it gives you a
little extra buffer that you
could use to really improve
yourself.”
Because of all that the
program has to offer, Rodriguez
thinks the “rigorous”
application and interviewing
process is fair.
Ewing explained that the
interview process alone involves
a “morning and a half
of an afternoon’s” worth of
presentations, group discussions
and evaluations from
MƒA representatives.
“I think that it’s that
way for a reason, because
it wants to make sure that
teachers are really passionate
about learning, first and
foremost,” Rodriguez said.
“And that passion for learning
gets pushed in to your
classroom.”
Ewing, a mathematician
who was a professor at Indiana
University for 25 years
prior to becoming the president
of MƒA, hopes that the
program will grow from it’s
New York City origins in the
near future.
He talked about previous
efforts to create a similar
program in Connecticut that
didn’t work out in the end,
and their latest “mini-MƒA”
project in New Jersey. Ewing
also mentioned how they
successfully convinced New
York state to create a program
modeled on theirs.
“It’s called the New York
State Master Teacher Program
(NYSMTP) and it’s
funded by the state,” he said.
“It’s grown a lot.”
With 10 percent of the
entire MƒA community representing
the city’s STEM
teaching population, both
Ewing and Rodriguez believe
that, in the end, it’s the students
who will benefit the
most in the long run.
When addressing the
common misconception that
math may be too hard to understand,
Rodriguez said that
he combats this “stigma” by
having a “growth mindset”
in his own classroom and
shows his students that even
if they’re not good at one
problem, they might be able
to solve another.
“I think it’s very important
that as educators we
make sure that we give those
kids successes and we give
them an opportunity to succeed
so that they can see that
their persistence and their
grit will push beyond that
misunderstanding, and actually
get them to where they
want to be,“ he said.
Below, see the full list of
MFA’s new members of the
Queens teacher cohort.
• Gabriela Aldave Jordan,
Aviation Career & Technical
Education High School
• Michael Capobianco,
Thomas A. Edison Career
and Technical Education
High School
• Melissa Fernandez, John
Adams High School
• Sara Gottlieb, P.S. 165
Edith K. Bergtraum
• Helen Haritos, Bayside
High School
• Estefania Hereira,
Flushing International High
School
• Dawoun Jyung, Metropolitan
Expeditionary
Learning School
• Despina Kaneris, Queens
High School for Language
Studies
• Milly Linares, I.S. 093
Ridgewood
• Taryn Martinez, Hunters
Point Community Middle
School
• Marisa Miller, Forest
Hills High School
• Oluseyi Okuneye, Metropolitan
Expeditionary
Learning School
• Angela Oldenburg, World
Journalism Preparatory
• Luna Ramirez, Information
Technology High School
• Andrew Rodriguez,
Hunters Point Community
Middle School
• Michelle Sugrim, Business
Technology Early College
High School
• Erica Tunick, Forte Preparatory
Academy Charter
School
• Christian VanDeurs,
World Journalism Preparatory
• Quratul Waqas, I.S. 230
• Jessica White, Scholars’
Academy
• Kaitlyn Zwicke, Queens
High School for Information,
Research, and Technology
26 TIMESLEDGER, OCT. 18-24, 2019 BT QNS.COM
/QNS.COM
