天美传媒

by Cecil Harris听

Irene Pizzo knew she didn鈥檛 have a typical teaching job when, after a holiday break, she returned to the classroom only to hear her students exclaim, 鈥淵ou came back! None of the other science teachers came back!鈥�

Since 2009, Pizzo has taught biology, chemistry and physical science at Knowledge and Power Preparatory Academy (a.k.a. KAPPA 5), a public school for Grades 6鈥�8 in Brownsville, a hardscrabble neighborhood in Brooklyn. How hardscrabble? One student told Pizzo she was happy that her family would be moving to a fifth-floor apartment in the same building. Why? 鈥淲e won鈥檛 have bullets going through our windows anymore,鈥� the student said.

Building the self-esteem of her students is as fundamental to Pizzo鈥檚 job as teaching them science. 鈥淪o many of us who graduate from Adelphi come from the suburbs and we don鈥檛 know what it鈥檚 like to be a kid from the inner city,鈥� said Pizzo, who lives on Long Island, in the town of Centereach. 鈥淵ou need to learn from them to be able to teach them.鈥�

Pizzo, who is married and the mother of four, had planned to attend medical school after graduating from Adelphi. Her plans changed after she worked one summer as a volunteer tutor for disadvantaged kids in Hempstead, New York. The satisfaction from helping students master a subject they once considered too difficult and seeing their confidence grow convinced her to become a teacher. She enrolled in , which allows a candidate to earn a bachelor鈥檚 and master鈥檚 degree in five years while gaining invaluable experience as a student-teacher.

After an internship in the Bellmore-Merrick school district on Long Island, Pizzo taught at St. John the Baptist Diocesan High School, a highly regarded school in West Islip, New York. But the desire to teach inner-city kids proved stronger. She drives more than 100 miles round trip each day to teach at KAPPA 5.

In the 2013鈥�2014 academic year, Pizzo helped organize trips for KAPPA 5 students to visit Georgetown University and Yale University. 鈥淢any of the kids we took to Georgetown and Yale had never left Brownsville before,鈥� she said. 鈥淲e鈥檝e taken them snow tubing in the Poconos, and next year we want to take them to a farm. You have to expose these kids to as many different experiences as possible.鈥�

While teaching inner-city kids has been a joy for Pizzo, she finds it frustrating to have to explain to her students why a better-funded charter school in the same building gets new desks and chairs when KAPPA 5 does not. And some of the charter school teachers, assuming the worst about KAPPA 5, have told their students, 鈥楧on鈥檛 be like those kids.鈥� Pizzo, however, believes in 鈥渢hose kids鈥� and tells them, 鈥淵ou are not just passing through school. You are going to college.鈥�