Finding diverse pathways to success

Second-year teacher Taylor Rettig remains grounded as she navigates the pressures of a new teaching career in New York City by focusing on the essentials: helping newly arrived immigrant students integrate and thrive.

“It’s such a pivotal age,” she says of middle school students like those she instructs at IS 93 in Ridgewood, Queens. “They’re trying to figure out who they are — their identity. It’s really cool that I can play such an important role for them in that experience.”

To celebrate the diverse cultures represented in her 6th grade English as a new language science class, Rettig builds inclusive curricular units — for example, a science project where students research weather in their home countries and present their findings. “I try to relate the content to their own lives,” she says. “They feel so proud when they learn more and are able to share with others in the classroom.”

Rettig, through her study of best practices in engaging newcomer students, isn’t afraid to try different tactics to encourage students of all language proficiencies to participate in class discussions. She teaches her students nonverbal cues, such as crossing two fingers in a plus sign to indicate they want to “add on,” to show that they are following along or would like to contribute to the conversation. She allows students to read and work in their native languages as a support for learning the content as they transition to English.

Rettig’s upbeat, nonpunitive responses to her students’ inevitable mistakes reduces their anxiety and contributes to their success. “They know that I’m not going to scold them or get mad at them,” she says, which makes students more willing to take risks in their new language.

Her approach also encourages perseverance and teamwork among her students, lessons Rettig herself learned as a student and athlete on the track team at SUNY Geneseo.

Rettig’s efforts extend beyond her own classroom.

She runs an afterschool program preparing kids for the English as a second language achievement exam and for the school’s Title 3 literacy program.

She supports her fellow teachers as well. Rettig leads a before-school professional development book club to help her colleagues better address the needs of both native-English-speaking students and ELLs. “Our school is so diverse that really all of our students benefit” from the strategies the teachers learn, she says.

Rettig’s drive to build community is appreciated by her colleagues. “She doesn’t just clock in and out and worry about her own classroom,” Rettig’s teacher colleague and UFT Delegate Rebecca Parker says. “She contributes to making the school better as a whole.”

Rettig’s students appreciate the special place that is their homeroom — so much so that they were sad as the last day of school approached last year.

“They were saying that we were like a family,” Rettig says. “And I thought, ‘Wow, I was part of this. We built this together.’”