Tag Archives: Jewish American teachers

Former NYC English teacher Arlene Stringer was a trailblazer

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Former New York City English teacher Arlene Stringer was a trailblazer. She is pictured here reading to her grandson, Max. Photo credit New York Post

Many excellent classroom teachers have also served their communities as capable politicians. One of these was Arlene Stringer-Cuevas, a Jewish schoolteacher also served on the New York City Council.

Arlene was born Sept. 25, 1933. Her first husband was Ronald Stringer, an assistant to New York City Mayor Abraham Beame. When that marriage ended, Arlene raised her two boys in Washington Heights as a single mother. Once she earned her degrees, Arlene taught at a public school in the Bronx. She also instructed courses in English as a Second Language at the local Y.

Like many members of her family, Arlene expressed an interest in politics. She ran for and was elected as the District Leader for her Democratic Party, a trailblazing role she served in from 1969 to 1976. She was elected to the New York City Council, where she served from 1976 to 1977. In fact, she was the first woman to represent Washington Heights. “I used to follow her around to all her meetings,” remembers her son, Scott Stringer. “More than once, she was asked by some man in the room why she wasn’t home with her husband. In signature fashion, she’d respond, ‘I don’t have a husband,'” he continued. “And then she’d outsmart, out-humor, and simply outdo all of them—no matter what they were doing,” he concluded.  Later, Arlene worked for their New York City Human Resources Administration for 16 years, until her retirement in 1994.

In her final years, she was married to the former City Clerk and Deputy Bronx Borough President Carlos Cuevas. The two divided their time between New York City and Puerto Rico. Sadly, Arlene succumbed to Covid-19 on April 3, 2020. She was 86 years old. At the time of her passing, her son Scott Stringer was serving as New York City’s Comptroller.

Cherie Bonder Goldman garners 2022 Georgia State Teacher of the Year honors, yet education is her second career

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Elementary teacher Cherie Bonder Goldman of Savannah, Georgia, has been named her state’s 2022  Teacher of the Year. Yet teaching is a second career for the honored educator. Photo Credit: The Atlanta Journal Constitution

Many excellent educators come to the classroom years after establishing successful careers in the private sector. One of these is Cherie Bonder Goldman, an elementary school teacher in Georgia who originally worked in the advertising industry. Teaching may be Cherie’s second career, but clearly education is her calling. She is so good at the job that she has garnered the title of 2022 Georgia State Teacher of the Year!

Cherie was born to a Jewish family in New York and was raised in Chattanooga, Tennessee. She earned her Bachelor’s degree in Japanese from Georgetown University in 1993, and her Master’s degree in East Asian studies from Stanford University in 1995. Originally her goal was to become a Japanese language teacher. Unfortunately, jobs in that field were scarce, and so she accepted a position in advertising, first working on the Toyota account at Saatchi & Saatchi, and then working on the Clorox account at DDB Worldwide Communications Group.

Despite her success in the corporate world, deep down inside Cherie knew she belonged in the classroom. After she moved to Savannah, Georgia, she enrolled at Armstrong Atlantic State University, where she earned her Master’s degree in Early Childhood Education. She also completed coursework to become an Education Specialist in Teacher Leadership from Mercer University in 2019.

Cherie launched her career as an educator when she accepted a position with Savannah-Chatham County Public Schools, first at White Bluff Elementary, and then at Hesse K-8 School, where she has taught for the last 12 years. She currently teaches English to Speakers of Other Languages.

“I always strive to make content personally relevant so students never ask, ‘What’s the point?'” declares Cherie. for example, “In math, we design dream homes, calculating area for carpet and perimeter for fencing. In writing, we pen letters to the principal supporting or disagreeing with school uniforms so students understand the exponential power of well-articulated opinions,” she says. “When students connect content to their world, education transcends the classroom,” Cherie concludes.

At Hesse, in addition to her work int he classroom, Cherie serves on the Leadership Team and chairs the Schoolwide Writing Team. She has also served as a grade level-lead, the Site-based Induction Specialist, the Professional Learning Liaison, and a School Council member.

For her exemplary work in the classroom, Cherie has garnered honors as the 2022 Georgia State Teacher of the Year. In this role, she has chaired a task force established to investigate the root causes of teacher burnout and to make actionable suggestions for improvement to state and local policy makers.

NY teacher Herbert Parmat: A major historian of American politics

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High school social studies teacher and college professor Herbert Parmat earned acclaim as the author of many well-received biographies of American presidents. Photo Credit: The Portal to Texas History

Many talented educators have earned acclaim as accomplished authors. One of these is Herbert Parmat, a high school social studies teacher and historian who wrote many well-received biographies of American presidents. In fact, he has been described as a major historian of the American presidency and politics.

Herbert was born on Aug. 28, 1929, in New York City, the son of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. As a youngster, he attended DeWitt Clinton High School in New York, graduating in 1948. He earned his Bachelor’s degree at State University of New York, Oswego, in 1951, and his Master’s degree from Queens College in 1957. During these years, Herbert also completed a stint in the US Army, where he served from 1952 to 1954, achieving the rank of Corporal.

In the 1960s, Herbert taught social studies at North Babylon High School in Long Island, and then at Mineola High School in Mineola in Long Island. At Mineola, he served as the school’s Social Studies Department. He also taught history courses at the Graduate Center of City University of New York and at Queensborough Community College. By all accounts, Herbert was an outstanding classroom teacher, dynamic and charismatic. When he retired in 1995, the former high school teacher was named a Distinguished Professor Emeritus.

While teaching at Mineola, Herbert decided to tackle a writing project with colleague Marie B. Hecht. The pair authored their first biography, Aaron Burr: Portrait of an Ambitious·Man (1967). Together, they also wrote Never Again: A President Runsfor a Third Term: Roosevelt versus Wi/lkie, 1940 (1968). This was followed by a pioneering biography, Eisenhower and the American Crusades (1972). Next, Herbert wrote The Democrats: The Years After FDR (1976). In a return to the biography genre, he authored Jack: The Struggles of John F. Kennedy (1980) and JFK: The Presidency of John F. Kennedy (1983). Next, he penned the biographies Richard Nixon and His America (1990) and George Bush: The Life of a Lone Star Yankee (1997). His later works were Presidential Power from the New Deal to the New Right (2002) and a return to an earlier biographical subject in Richard M. Nixon: An American Enigma (2008).

This outstanding educator passed away on Jan. 25, 2017, in Newton, Massachusetts. He was 87 years old. To read more about Herbert Parmat, click on this link to History News Network.

Vampire Weekend musician once taught junior high school

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Alternative rock musician Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend fame formerly taught English to eight graders in New York City. Photo Credit: FamousBirthdays.com

Many individuals who have enjoyed successful careers as entertainers have also experienced success as classroom teachers. One of these is Ezra Koenig, a musician who also taught at a junior high school in New York.

Ezra was born on April 8, 1984, in New York City. As a youth, his family moved to Glen Ridge, New Jersey, where he graduated from Glen Ridge High School. He then returned to New York to enroll at Columbia University.

Right out of college, and looking very young for his 23 years, Ezra taught English courses for eighth graders at Junior High School #258 in Brooklyn, New York. He there as part of the Teach for America program. Although Ezra’s students described him as laid back, Ezra remembers those years as rough. “It was a pretty hectic lifestyle,” he confesses. “I mean, (being a full-time musician) is a hectic lifestyle too, but to teach all day, then go record or try to, you know, play a show, and then wake up and go to work again was pretty difficult.”

In the entertainment industry, Ezra is best known as the lead singer, guitarist, and principal songwriter of the alternative rock band Vampire Weekend. But the former teacher is also the creator and host of the Apple Music fortnightly radio show, Time Crisis with Ezra Koenig. He has also earned acclaim as the creator of the American-Japanese animated television series, Neo Yokio.

For his work in the music industry, Ezra has earned many accolades. He has garnered five Grammy Award nominations for his work with Vampire Weekend. He won the award for Best Alternative Music Album in both 2013 and 2019. He was also nominated for Album of the Year 2016 for his work as a producer on Beyonce’s album Lemonade.

To read more about Ezra’s experiences as a teacher, see this link to an article about him published by MTV News.

Award-winning author Jacqueline Jules also works as a school librarian

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Virginia school librarian and teacher Jacqueline Jules has earned acclaim as an author of children’s books. Photo Credit: Jacqueline Jules

There are many excellent educators who have earned success in endeavors outside of the classroom. This is true of Jacqueline Jules, a school librarian and teacher from Virginia who has has earned acclaim as an author of children’s books.

Jacqueline was born in 1956 in Petersburg, Virginia. As a young woman, she earned her Bachelor’s degree with a major in Creative Writing from the University of Pittsburgh. In 2001 she earned her Master’s degree in Library Science from the University of Maryland.

Currently, Jacqueline works as a school librarian at Timber Lane Elementary School in Falls Church, Virginia. She also works as a storyteller and as a guest speaker at schools. She has also taught religious school, led Tot Shabbat services, and has experience as a writing resource teacher. Her career as an educator has spanned a total of 28 years. She credits these experiences with her success as an author. “It actually wasn’t until I became a school librarian that I had enough ideas for writing children’s books,” Jacqueline confesses. “My years as a librarian fueled my writing rather than stalled it. Working in a school taught me what children enjoy and what was missing from library shelves,” she continued. “I could never do the writing I do now without having been a teacher,” she concludes.

Jacqueline’s work has appeared in over 100 publications. She has authored more than 50 children’s books, including The Grey Striped Shirt; Once upon a Shabbos; the Zapato Power series; the Sofia Martinez series; Unite or Die: How Thirteen States Became a Nation; Duck for Turkey Day; Never Say a Mean Word Again; Feathers for Peacock; The Hardest Wor; and Pluto is Peeved. Also a poet, Jacqueline is the author of Tag Your Dreams: Poems of Play and Persistence.

For her work as a children’s author, Jacqueline has earned many accolades. She garnered the Arlington Arts Moving Words Contest twice, in 1999 and again in 2007. In 2009, she earned the SCBWI Magazine Merit Plaque for Poetry, and 2008, she received the Best Original Poetry Award from the Catholic Press Association. She has also garnered a citation for Notable Books for Young Readers from the Association of Jewish Libraries in 2002, and that same year she was named a National Jewish Book Award finalist.

To learn more about this amazing educator and author, visit www.jacquelinejules.com.