bio & BACKGROUND

My name is Elisabeth spelled with an S but everyone calls me Betsy. At school I am Ms. Gitelle.

I was born in 1962 in New York City, attended The Dalton School from kindergarten through twelfth grade, skipped third grade, got the third highest SAT scores in my grade, and graduated 87th out of 90. In my senior year I received a Valentine from my classmates that said, "We all have remorses 'cause Betsy failed three courses." School was a trauma for me. I desperately wanted to do well, but couldn't figure out how. My big sister was diagnosed with dyslexia, and my little brother with auditory processing problems. I was supposed to be "the smart one." So why was I failing?

In those days the designation "twice exceptional," or 2E, had not yet been invented, so none of the accommodations that we have today for a student who is at once Gifted and Talented and struggling with A.D.D. (that's what I have, the inattentive type) were available to me. Intuitively, I knew something was getting in my way, but I did not know what was wrong or how to ask for help. Also, growing up in a chaotic environment with a high-functioning alcoholic dad and an emotionally remote mom complicated the family dynamics and made my underachievement all the more isolating.

I managed to graduate from high school and was graced with an acceptance to Emory University, where an admissions counselor told me they were willing to take a chance on me. Step by step, I figured out constructive behaviors that allowed me to learn and grow. I developed a spine, plugged in and worked hard because I wanted to do well. I was sick of feeling ashamed. By my senior year as an English major, I learned how to formulate my own point of view and how to tell the truth. Reading literature and writing about it made me see that my struggles were human struggles, and that we are all connected through our personal experiences of the universal.

As a senior in college, I took an introductory course in education with the thought that I might one day teach. After reading about constructivism, I wrote my term paper on technology in education, which in turn led me to a master’s degree program in Computing in Education at Teachers College at Columbia University. Suddenly, I was a visionary, a technologist, a futurist, an early adopter. I felt immediately at home in an undefined domain where we could invent the future of education. I loved the idea of the neutrality of the tools and the way that the computer and networks could connect and empower students of all ages and backgrounds. A core part of the master's degree program included instructional design of all kinds of materials, analog and digital, and I relished the discipline of solving complex problems within tight parameters.

I went on to build a twenty-five year track record of success in a creative career — always pushing the limits of technology to serve specific human needs — making interactive educational materials, doing interface design, and working as an exhibit designer. I found that the structure of project work, and the excitement of collaborating with creative teams, solved most of the problems my A.D.D. presented, and my ability to hyperfocus on detailed design and project management work became an asset.

By 2008 I realized I needed to shift my energy from commerce into service. At every pivotal point in my life, when faced with an existential decision, I turn to the basics, to reading and writing, as a way to quiet the noise and tune to the signal that guides me to my best next step. At the end of that year, after much soul-searching, I decided to heed Obama's charge to "Be the Change" and take the risk to go back to school to become a teacher. In 2011, I earned my Master of Arts in Teaching English degree at Montclair State University, and I have been working on applying theory to my practice as an English teacher ever since.

The problems I faced as a student are not the exact problems my students face, but my personal history enables me to identify my students' obstacles, whatever they may be, and understand that the struggle is real, however it manifests. Knowing what it feels like to be misunderstood and invisible, I can design instructional experiences that enable students to close gaps in their literacy skills and make dramatic strides in critical thinking, reading, and writing. For students who come from homes where there is love, kindness, and support, and who may be naturally well-regulated and disposed to learning, I can pitch the instruction differently. Every student reveals an individual need that I want to meet with my instruction. This approach, "High Tech, High Touch," in practice becomes the integration of my personal and professional growth.

In this moment of social reckoning, it would be remiss for me not to acknowledge that my trajectory is built on my white privilege. Some people would say that because I am Jewish, I am not white, and some people would say that because I am Jewish my white privilege is provisional. As an undergraduate in the South, I began to see how outsiders ― among them, artists, Jews, Blacks ― could be misunderstood, stereotyped, and scapegoated in different ways by the majority, and I experienced my minority status as a Jewish woman from the North in visceral ways. When I started working with "inner-city" students in the mid-eighties, I began the work of dismantling my own biases and prejudices, which continues to this day. In recent years, through my synagogue, Bnai Keshet, I have participated in numerous formal anti-racism trainings. In November of 2019, we traveled to Montgomery, Alabama to the Equal Justice Institute to see the work of Bryan Stevenson. I try to "walk the walk" as a white anti-racist educator every day, in school and out. This is a spiritual practice.

I believe that we are all wired to learn and grow, and that in the right conditions, we all will, just as every seed given light and water will grow. For me, reading and writing are light and water, the material of miracles. As an English teacher at the Paterson Public Schools, I get the chance to engage in the study of the English Language Arts with members of the whole human family, and to use those lessons to make us all feel better and do better. To teach students who deserve the highest-quality instruction and the highest expectations for success allows me to witness the fulfillment of human potential every day.

We read, we write, we discuss, we explore, we assess, and then we redirect our intellectual and creative energies to reach the next rung on the ladder. Together, we learn and grow. Every day, miracles abound.