Introduction

Hello EDUC 513,
My name is Zach Galin and I have just finished my second semester at Bank Street in the Childhood Education program. I am the 6th grade science teacher at South Bronx Prep, a public 6-12 school in the Mott Haven section of the Bronx. At the school, I also assist with college and financial aid applications and help to coordinate our small group academic guidance program, called Pathways.

I came to teaching after growing up thinking I had to be an investment banker to be considered successful. I began my undergraduate career at Northwestern University in a program that can be dubbed "econometrics." I became active in Hillel (the Foundation for Jewish Campus Life), both on my campus and internationally, and took a strong interest in studying how organizations run and how to influence change within them. To that end, I switched majors to one called Learning and Organizational Change, which was in the School of Education and Social Policy.

This track at Northwestern was paralleled with my summer experiences. I spent my childhood as a camper at a residential camp in northeast Pennsylvania. My youngest brother, who is currently 11, kept me going back to camp well into college as a counselor and currently as the Director of Programming. Now approaching my 16th summer at camp, I have realized that I owe much of my success to my camp experience and am passionate about helping to build confidence within children through informal educational institutions, such as camp.

With my new interest in education and my studies in organizational change, upon graduation, I joined Kaplan Tutoring to run one of their centers. After a year, and working with hundreds of diverse children in NYC, I began to see the inequity that exists in the outcomes of our city's educational system. I decided I wanted to get a better understanding of this inside the classroom, and joined Teach for America.

My work in school has been quite the educational experience for me and has made me realize, first-hand, that schools are truly the key that opens the door for every child's future - and we should treat it as such.

~Z