Published in ConnectED Newsletter - Volume 7 - Issue 1 - September 2023
Kelli Hesseltine is an English Language and Literature teacher at the High School for Math, Science, and Engineering at CCNY (HSMSE), where she has taught for the past 18 years and where she spends her days with curious and thoughtful students as they explore the many ways in which literature tries to capture human experience. She is the English Department Instruction Lead, as well as the advisor for the school’s student-led newspaper, The ECHO, and the Book Dragon Reading Club.
Before coming to New York, Kelli was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ukraine, where she taught English as a Foreign Language in a small village. “Through those early experiences of finding a home and community in a faraway place and then through my subsequent interactions with English Language Learners in my first NYC classrooms, I fell in love with the beauty of language and the power of language acquisition,” she says. Pursuing her second master’s degree at CCNY in the TESOL program felt like the logical next step for her as both a student and educator. In this program, she encountered professors passionate about their fields and classmates with a diverse array of life experiences who are committed to urban education. “My time at CCNY confirmed for me that skillful, knowledgeable teachers are essential to empowering students to change the world. And so, a better understanding of and appreciation for the beautiful complexity of languages and the communication they facilitate, which this program encourages, is something I strive to pass on to my high school students.”
The professors Kelli met at the CCNY School of Education exposed here to new fields and guided her progression as both an educator and an academic. Her work with Prof. Joseph Davis and Prof. Nancy Stern connected her to the Columbia School Linguistic Society, which allowed her to pursue the study of linguistics alongside her pedagogical development in TESOL. Furthermore, the opportunity to engage in linguistic research through an independent study ultimately resulted in the publication of an article on the communicative function of adjective-noun order in English. “Overall, the many different individuals I encountered in the School of Education, from practicum placement to course advising, from paperwork support to study groups, were all incredibly generous with their time and expertise.”
Kelli loves teaching in the NYCDOE and feels lucky to be working with her students as they continue to build the school newspaper. They just recently interviewed Dr. Boudreau and will be publishing that edition soon. “It is important to me to help build an even better working relationship between HSMSE and CCNY, two academic institutions that I love and that share the same corner of Harlem,” she says. Additionally, she continues her linguistic research with Prof. Davis; in fact, they are working steadily toward finishing another paper. Finally, Kelli hopes to continue to enlarge her teaching experiences and looks forward to the opportunity to possibly instruct a course at CCNY. “I would love to someday give to others the same time, encouragement, and pedagogical instruction that I found here as a student.”
Last Updated: 09/29/2023 12:21