Zoe Fay Oppenheimer

201 West 92nd Street, Apt. 5D New York, NY 10025

(516) 780-3766 zoppenheimer@bankstreet.edu

As a Bank Street College of Education student completing a Masters Degree in teaching literacy and as a
teacher at Rye Country Day School, I am seeking an elementary classroom teaching position for the
2016-2017 school year. When creating my classroom environment and crafting and adapting the units
that I teach, I contemplate how I can make both academic and social emotional learning student-driven.
Last year when I taught kindergarten, I collaborated with the grade-level team to adapt our nutrition
science unit to become more student-centered and interdisciplinary. To complement our science
curriculum, we coordinated with the schools food services provider, who allowed the students to choose
the lunch menu for one day. To promote the event, the students designed posters and made
announcements in each class. Through this process, students integrated the skills and strategies of the
writing process while learning to become agents of change.
A major theme of our second grade character-building curriculum is empowering the students to have
grit. To launch this theme, the students engaged in a team-building activity, The Marshmallow
Challenge. Due to the nature of the exercise, obstacles quickly emerged, testing the students mettle.
Our discussion following the activity stimulated the students to articulate the difficulties that they faced
and the effective strategies that they used to resolve them. This challenge became the classs metaphor
for what it means to have grit. I have seen students demonstrate this new sense of perseverance on
multiple occasions, including when they were guided through the discovery of arrays using manipulatives
at the beginning of our multiplication unit.
Creating a space that is student-driven is at the heart of my practice. Please feel free to browse the rest
of my digital teaching portfolio, www.zoeoppenheimer.weebly.com, to learn more about my teaching
philosophy and how I can help further your schools mission. I would welcome speaking with you to
learn more about opportunities at your school for the 2016-2017 school year. You can reach me at 516780-3766 or zoppenheimer@bankstreet.edu.