Barnard Alumna to Lead Effort to 'Clone' Successful
School
NEW
YORK, N.Y. - Alisa Berger '94 was astonished by
what she witnessed as a student teacher in a New
York City middle school during her senior year
in college -- her students were scoring off the
charts and winning scholarships to some of the
nation's most elite private and public high schools.
After graduating Barnard with a degree in English
and a minor in education and political science,
Berger returned to the school for three years
as a full-time teacher and began to wonder why
there aren't more schools like Mott Hall. Today,
she is working with a former New York City Board
of Education official to open a "clone" of the
original -- to be called Mott Hall II -- in the
Fall.
Berger
was profiled in a
recent story in The New York Times.
(You must be registered with the Times to view
the story.)
According
to the Feb. 28 article by Anemona Hartocollis,
"Alisa Berger was studying English as a senior
at Barnard College the first time she set foot
inside Mott Hall in West Harlem. She spent a year
at the middle school as a student teacher, then
three more as a full-time teacher, marveling as
poor children from Hispanic immigrant families
posted top reading and math scores and went off
to selective places like Stuyvesant and Andover.
"She found herself pondering a question asked
by desperate parents and students across New York
City: If Mott Hall can be so good in a city of
many foundering schools, why can't there be more
Mott Halls?
"Seven
years after that first visit, armed with a master's
degree in teaching and another in business, Ms.
Berger is back as a principal in training. With
the help of John Elwell, a former New York City
Board of Education bureaucrat turned impresario
of cloned schools, she hopes the answer to their
question will finally be, 'Why not?' "
Susan
Riemer Sacks, Ph.D., director of the Education
program at Barnard, through which Berger earned
her teaching certificate, said she was extremely
proud of her former student.
"Berger is one of a number of Barnard and Columbia
undergraduates who know and care about students,
seek options for them, have a broad knowledge
of curriculum, are permeated with intellectual
curiosity from their head to toes, and stay enthusiastic
even in the face of bureaucracy and setbacks,"
Sacks said.
"They are the teachers who believe that all of
their students can and will learn and that they
will teach them -- no matter what," Sacks added.
"They persist. They find alternatives. They commit
themselves to making a difference in the lives
of students."
Berger
will bring at least one graduate of the Barnard
College Institute for Urban Education, which Sacks
also directs, with her to Mott Hall II: Ana De
Los Santos, a Wellesley College graduate, who
participated in the IUE in 1996.
The
Institute for Urban Education
was founded in 1993 to combat a shortage of skilled
teachers in America's urban middle schools. More
than 160 students have participated in the program
since its inception. Undergraduates from many
colleges work with public school teachers in the
classroom for hands-on experience, coordinate
after-school ecology clubs, and take courses in
urban issues and teaching methods, and lead forest
ecology projects at Black Rock Forest.
Contact: Laura Whitlock, 212-854-2037
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