Meredith Hill

I grew up in Haverhill, Massachusetts, a city north of Boston, alongside the Merrimac River.  With a llama farm down the street, a horse farm next door, and a river backyard, I grew up exploring and loving the outdoors.  An early animal enthusiast, I had a range of pets including a dog, cats, rabbits, ducks, a ferret, snakes, parakeets, frogs, fish, and butterflies! 

In elementary school, I discovered my love for performing and visual arts - something that has continued to this day. I performed in theatre productions throughout Northeastern Massachusetts, studied music at the New England Conservatory, and took classes in dance and visual arts.  This led me to find a passion for teaching in high school, working as a theatre camp counselor, choreographing dance for local theatre companies, and leading a summer dance workshop series for children and adults.

At the small public school I attended in Massachusetts, I became frustrated with the lack of diversity of options, the limitations placed on students’ voices, and the close-minded attitudes of many students. In response, I co-founded a Civil Rights Team and Model United Nations in my high school - both of which became vehicles for educating younger students and peers, while creating advocacy groups for students to delve into real-world issues.

New York City echoed the diversity of life and experience that I yearned for in high school, and I attended Barnard College at Columbia University. I followed a "typical" liberal arts beginning, trying on courses and majors and interests: English? Theatre critic? Dance historian? Middle Eastern Studies? I found many spheres that drew me in with new challenges to meet.  However, an exploration outside the bounds of academia was what most fervently engaged my interest: a volunteer program to teach the arts in a public school.

Artists Reaching Out soon became one of my most important weekly activities.  My 3rd through 6th grade students' enthusiasm gave an infectiously positive energy, while presenting the challenge of maintaining engaging and meaningful activities. I found myself using my college studies of theatre and dance to inform elementary school lessons. Countless hours were spent engaging with fellow volunteers in discussions about how to best manage the classroom, how to approach the subject matter, and how to assist students with language barriers.  Just as I was teaching these students, they were also teaching me that the value and purpose of a strong education was not to be taken for granted.

At Barnard I continued my passion for the arts, with a major in Theatre, and minor in Dance alongside the Barnard Education Program.  My theatre concentration in directing and design culminated in my senior thesis – an original adaption of Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince, which combined my interest in creative arts and English language arts.  The Little Prince premiered for local school groups before being performed as part of the Senior Thesis Festival in March 2007.

The Education Program at Barnard brought my interests in teaching to a whole new level and made questioning education and pedagogy a necessity.   The program's focus on educating for social justice empowered me to challenge the existing system and work towards creating a learning environment that meets the needs of all students.  I came to believe in the innate value of education as a foundation for all life pursuits - an experience that has the power to shape students’ perspectives in both positive and negative ways.

Teaching in a variety of settings, from a combined first and second grade classroom in a "high-needs" school to a public middle school theatre arts program, gave me the opportunity to analyze first-hand a range of educational practice. I spent summers interning at a variety of arts education programs in New York City, and interned at Morningside Area Alliance, a community-based organization, helping to design and implement arts-integrated English Language Arts curricula at a public school with few other arts offerings.  My multi-subject student teaching experience in a fifth grade classroom at Manhattan School for Children gave me the chance to put my own pedagogical understandings into practice and find my voice in the classroom.

 I came to CSS last year as the sixth grade Professor of English Language Arts (and taught courses in Philosophy, Dance, Theatre, and Creative Writing).  Creating my ELA curriculum and playing a role in the development of the school have proven to be exciting adventures that mark CSS as a unique public school.  The passion of students and faculty to engage in trying out new ideas, gain new understanding through the learning process, and explore the limitless bounds of education have been nothing short of thrilling.

In my English course, "Through Many Voices: Discovering the Art of the English Language," I constantly search for ways to meet all my students' needs and engage students in meaningful understanding of language.  Understanding that language is a formative aspect of identity, I encourage my students to build strong comprehension and fluency of English while acknowledging and valuing their own backgrounds as meaningful parts of their education.  I aim to give students the tools of language not only for passing state tests and meeting standards, but as an outlet for exploring themselves and their world.  

My early love for exploring the environment has recently returned as I co-created and co-directed the STAR (StudenT AmbassadoR) Program for student leadership, environmental stewardship, and engineering.  STAR just launched with a successful two-week summer leadership summit, and will continue throughout the year with 7th grade Student Ambassadors from CSS and our neighbor school, KIPP:STAR.  STARs will be launching an engineering/service learning project to address issues of environmental concern in the Harlem/Morningside neighborhoods.

This year, in addition to teaching 6th grade English Language Arts, I am working as 6th grade team leader and Creative Arts Program Director.  I look forward to welcoming the new class to join our CSS Community!