At the beginning of each school year, new students flood Stuyvesant’s hallways. Sometimes, though, there are other new arrivals in the classroom: the teachers. Just like students, the newly hired faculty must also find their place in Stuyvesant.
Stuyvesant is physical education teacher Vasken Choubaralian’s first teaching job. Choubaralian came to Stuyvesant after completing teaching school at Queens College and student teaching at St. Francis Preparatory School and Franklin Elementary School.
“I didn’t really choose Stuyvesant. It kind of fell into my lap through word of mouth. It was a very fast process,” Choubaralian said. “Someone referred me to the school and told me there was an opening here and I followed up and here I am today.”
Choubaralian has already developed his own teaching techniques: “I’m not very teacher-oriented in that I don’t like to stand there and just talk and talk. I like to give students the opportunity to voice their opinions and give answers,” he said.
Some teachers, such as physics teacher Dr. Jamal Ali, biology teacher Hemal Pathak and biology teacher Daniel Piloff, transferred to Stuyvesant after teaching at colleges.
Stuyvesant is the first high school Ali has worked at, but he has taught for nine years at four city universities: Borough of Manhattan Community College, Bronx Community College, Hostos Community College and City College of New York.
Ali had to adjust his teaching techniques to fit high school by focusing his lessons on a more standard curriculum. Yet he finds Stuyvesant to be more of a college than other typical high schools.
“There’s more freedom at college. You can spend more time or skip chapters than at high school. Usually the lecture goes more nicely in college, but Stuyvesant is very close to college,” Ali said. “I’m very happy with the students because they are mature both intellectually and socially.”
Ali decided to work at Stuyvesant because he found it difficult to earn tenure as a college professor.
“It’s so hard to get a permanent position at a college. People ages 65 or 70 don’t retire because they are getting good salaries and they have good hours. At college, teachers only work 12 hours per week,” he said. “It’s the best job in the world because you can focus more on teaching. I could not get a permanent position at college, but this is the healthiest environment and these are the best kids in the city.”
Before joining the New York City public school system, chemistry teacher Kristyn Pluchino worked for a company that invented a classified portable detection device and traveled to U.S. Air Force bases to train soldiers to use it.
“My company had a contract and after the contract was filled, there was no more need for training,” she said. “I liked the teaching identity and wanted to pursue it further, so I moved to New York City and became involved in the public school system.”
Pluchino finds Stuyvesant students very different from the students at her previous school, the Renaissance Charter School. She said, “Stuy students are better as far as academics and also behavior. They work harder and are more concerned with their grades, which means they also do better on tests.”
Sophomore Jennifer Shin, a student of Pluchino’s, said, “Her method is trying to connect with us and it works because it makes her class more fun. One time when we were studying radioactive decay, she brought in M&Ms and we got to eat the ‘decayed’ ones after the lesson.”
This year, the foreign language department added Spanish teacher Manuel Simon. Simon taught at five schools before coming to Stuyvesant, three of which were impact schools, schools on “watch” by the Department of Education.
Simon describes Stuyvesant as being “the other end of what I’m used to. At my other schools, we were under city watch. Superintendents and city officials could just walk in […] to judge the school. For those students, academics came in second or third. Here at Stuyvesant, they come in first,” he said.
Stuyvesant students have various reactions to new teachers.
Many students, such as sophomore Claire Littlefield, are prepared to adjust to new teachers. “It’s weird at first because the ones that have been there for a while, you can hear about them from upperclassmen. But with new teachers, you have to figure out the rules for yourself,” she said.
Some students take advantage of new teachers. Sophomore Jan Raphael Cornel said, “It’s sort of hard not to take advantage of new teachers. I’m not saying I do, because I don’t, but you kind of take advantage of their not knowing about late policies and grading.”
Such tactics do not always work. Choubaralian, for one, lowers students’ grades if they misbehave. “Grades are a big part of students’ lives and it could be a great motivator for them to tell them that if they do something, their grade will be affected,” he said.
Senior teachers play an important role in welcoming and accepting new teachers. Assistant Principal English Eric Grossman, upon first applying to Stuyvesant, was “bumped out” twice before permanently hired in 1998. He remembers his first few years at Stuyvesant as being “very dicey because there was always the fear that there’d be another transfer,” he said.
His experience has affected his attitude towards new English teachers.
“I am aware of how tenuous new teachers can feel in the job and I want to work really hard to protect them, so what happened to me doesn’t happen to them,” Grossman said.
“I’m also always so thrilled and impressed with the English teachers’ willingness to bring teachers new to the department into the fold and to give them support and encouragement and advice,” he said.
Pluchino said, “I was the only chem teacher at my old school. It’s nice having a whole community here to give feedback and collaborate with.”
Despite its reputation as an intense and stressful school, Stuyvesant can provide a kind and helpful environment for new students and teachers. Grossman said, “Stuy students are eager to learn and easy to get along with. A teacher has to work hard to lose their cooperation and respect.”