---

---

for New York Family's FREE weekly newsletter with our picks for the best family events, resources, shopping, giveaways, and fun in the city and beyond. CLICK HERE

She Does It Mir’s Way

Harlem pre-school leader sometimes defies conventional wisdom

By Rosaleen Ortiz

It was early January and the sun was shining on one of the many snowfalls of the season. The sticky snow muffled the sounds of the city as a group of pre-schoolers made angels on a rooftop playground in Upper Manhattan.

“They were completely uninhibited. It was a magical day,” recalled Suzanne Mir, a veteran teacher at Corpus Christi School on West 121st Street.

Mir, 63, and a colleague helped their classroom children build a snowman out of three giant snowballs. “And I lifted these things up,” said Mir. “I nearly broke my back.”

For more than two decades, Mir has been dishing out her special brand of pre-K education: equal parts fun, creativity and respect. Twenty-two years ago, Mir and a former Corpus Christi principal drove to Princeton, N.J., and packed a station wagon with $5,000-worth of furniture and toys to establish the school’s first pre-K program.

Armed with a degree in early childhood education, experience  in the classroom teaching elementary and middle school students, and 11 years of experience raising two boys of her own, Mir set out to prove that kids blossom best in an environment that encourages self-expression, mutual respect and, above all else, having a blast.

She’s become, as Thanhha Lai put it, “a legend among know-it-all parents” in the Columbia University neighborhood.

“Mrs. Mir doesn’t teach so much as inspire,” said Lai, whose daughter An is one of Mir’s students. “My 4-year-old comes home discussing why Obama is our boss, how we need to help the people in the tsunami and what vegetables are seasonal.”

Mir would be the first to tell you she’s one opinionated teacher. After decades of trial and error, she says she’s earned the right. But she admits some of her insights raise eyebrows: Kids should not be forced to share everything (sharing has to evolve) or be best buds with everyone (they’re required to be nice). Teachers and parents should erase the concept of “good” or “bad” children from their memories (all kids are good, even those who don’t always listen). Children need unrestricted movement (Mir takes her kids outside almost every day). Each child has a voice—kids come to school to learn how to listen.

Mir is also a firm believer that everyone should have their moment in the spotlight. Each morning in her classroom, a different kid is named “head honcho” for the day. Head honchos are put in charge of tasks like delivering a message to another teacher, dispensing materials to classmates or clearing tables. They also get to choose the activity they’ll do for the day, which includes joining the “Kitchen Workers” or the “Block Builders.”

“I facilitate justice and fair play. I facilitate love of learning and the joy of working with materials that are going to make a holy mess. And by the way, I don’t clean up those blocks,” said Mir as she glances at a cabinet filled with row after row of neatly packed wooden blocks.

Her ultimate goal, she said, is to build a fun day for the kids who enter her classroom.

Stephanie Pilla, another parent, said her daughter Clementina looks forward to coming to school every day, and even asks about it during holiday breaks. Pilla calls Mir the ideal pre-school teacher because she’s a master at discipline but still encourages play. “And how many teachers,” she added, “would take their whole class onto the roof during a big snowfall to make a snowman?”

_
Suzanne Mir
Corpus Christi School
535 W. 121st St.