Published in ConnectED Newsletter - Volume 5 - Issue 2 - June 2022
Jane Maisel is an adjunct lecturer and supervisor of student teachers in our Bilingual Education and TESOL programs. Her education began in the integrated public schools of Evanston, Illinois, just outside Chicago. As she shared, “getting to know people from many neighborhoods and communities was both the most essential and perhaps the most exciting thing I learned in school.” She came to New York City, studied at Hunter College, and later got her master’s degree at Queens College while working full-time as a teacher. Several years later, with the encouragement of Professor Tatyana Kleyn, she returned to CCNY to join the Bilingual Education and TESOL programs. “My schedule was not for the faint-hearted, but I am full of admiration for our current CCNY School of Education students, who handle their family lives and their working lives as teachers and wage-earners while continuing to be students here.” She has worked as an adjunct for ten years.
The Workshop Center, the thrilling hub of student-centered experiential education led first by Lillian Weber and later by Hubert Dyasi, was what first brought Professor Maisel to The City College. “Many of the current faculty of the School of Education taught, studied, or did both in our center on the fourth floor of the NAC, where TLC now has its offices,” she said. “We were encouraged to ‘look for the cracks’ in the system. As grass breaks through concrete, we found ways to do inquiry learning, to collaborate with other teachers, and to respond actively and creatively to the interests and strengths of our students. Educators from all over the world joined us. New teachers were invited to the meetings of experienced teachers and were treated with equal respect. It was an intergenerational and democratic space, with ample opportunities to explore and create. This approach has been my polestar throughout my teaching career.”
Professor Maisel is fully committed to attending the needs of all students in the School of Education. She pointed out that “many of our students are already working teachers who can face a painful disconnect between what they have learned and what goes on in their schools. Despite the top-down nature of so much of our society, including most public schools, the School of Education wants to prepare their students to participate in democratic society. This brings us back to looking for the cracks.” She also shared a lesson she learned from Louisa Cruz, another team member of the Workshop Center: “’When a student leaves my class at the end of the year, I want them to know that there is one more person in this world who really knows them.’ That is our job as teachers.”
The respectful view of education that she has experienced in the School of Education, where we seek to collaborate with families and colleagues, and to learn from each other, as we fight for equity for public school families, is of the utmost importance to Professor Maisel. She added that she considers herself lucky to be part of this community, “where we care for each other, for the college students, and for the school-age students as well, as we seek to humanize the world for all of us.”
Last Updated: 06/01/2022 15:30