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2008: Rising Star Teacher of the Year

Taking Her Students Abroad
Within the classroom or in Europe, Eisenberg pushes boundaries

Devon Eisenberg is $5,000 short of taking 24 students from the South Bronx to Europe this summer. But she’s not worried. She has already raised $35,000 from donations and fundraisers, plus $20,000 from the Los Padres Foundation, which helps economically disadvantaged Hispanic youth in the New York area.

Eisenberg, who teaches math at Mott Hall V middle school in the South Bronx, decided she wanted to take her students to Europe last summer, when she and Mott Hall’s assistant principal, LeMarie Laureano, accompanied a group of Long Island teenagers to Australia.

So Eisenberg mobilized the teachers and students at Mott Hall V to raise money, searching out any fundraising opportunity she could find. Students sold wrapping paper and candy bars. Every Thursday, a group of students and teachers arrived early to sell bagels. And Eisenberg and three other teachers who will be accompanying the students each donated $2,500.

For the three weeks before the trip, students will come to school to learn about the history of the regions they’ll visit and to study for the SATs. Then they’ll see Rome, Florence, Paris and London. For many, it will be the first time abroad. Others have been only to the Dominican Republic or Puerto Rico to visit family.

“She’s very dynamic, very enthusiastic in terms of her presentation to the kids,” Laureano said.

There’s one lesson she gave the 6th grade that her students still talk about, two years later. Students picked a gender, ethnicity and education level out of a hat. Then they had to research what kind of jobs they’d be able to get, where they could afford to live and how much they could spend on rent.

“It was an eye-opener for many of them,” Eisenberg said.

Eisenberg knew she wanted to be a teacher during her senior year of high school on Long Island, when she interned in a 3rd grade classroom.

After majoring in education at SUNY Oswego, Eisenberg thought she wanted to teach elementary school. But her first job was teaching math at another middle school in the South Bronx. I.S. 184 was slated to close, so for two years, she made the most of a very challenging job.

“I learned classroom management there,” she said.

She also learned that she loved working with middle school students and wanted to continue teaching math—a subject she wasn’t sure about at the beginning.

“I struggled with math when I was younger,” Eisenberg said, “But I think that enabled me to be a better teacher.”

At Mott Hall V, Eisenberg chose to follow the 6th graders she taught her first year, teaching 7th grade last year and 8th grade this year.

“I don’t know many people who enjoy doing it,” Laureano said. “It’s a lot more work for the teacher because you have to do everything again at the beginning of the year.”

For Eisenberg, however, it was a chance to really get to know her students, both academically and personally.

“They’re graduating next month, and of course I’m so happy for them,” Eisenberg said. “I also know I’ll be a mess. I’m used to seeing them every day.”

— Jenny Fisher