Michele Reeves
Michele Reeves, Special Education and English Teacher
mreeves@newrootsschool.org, 607-882-9220
After more than a decade as a journalist for weekly travel and home fashion publications in New York City, I decided to combine my skills as a professional writer and editor with my desire
to help young adults become successful in life as a secondary English teacher and special educator working to build literacy. I moved to downtown Ithaca in January of 2006 to join my now husband and began working towards my master's programs in English Education and Inclusive Special Education at Syracuse University. After graduating from Syracuse University in December 2008, I worked as an English teacher at Ithaca High in 9th and 11th-grade honors English for a semester. The following year I served as a remedial English teacher and special education co-teacher in Trumansburg, where I supported literacy efforts and differentiation of instruction in the high school history
department. Before arriving at New Roots I worked in Bainbridge at the junior-senior high school, where I was a special education teacher in 7th-grade ELA and math, while helping the yearbook advisor to produce the latest edition
of the school's yearbook. I am very excited about joining the staff of New Roots and helping students find their talents and aspirations before leaving high school. I will be teaching 12th-grade English for college credit and
using my life experiences and passion to ignite the learning environment for students.
I was drawn to the teaching profession because of my deep appreciation of all that it means to be an adolescent trying to find your way in the world and searching for a voice and source of inspiration when sometimes our society can seem so bleak and hopeless. I truly believe that teachers can and do make a difference in the lives of young people... They simultaneously play several important roles in the lives of today's youth: educator, mentor, cheerleader, tutor, coach, counselor, role model and part-time parent. In fact, it was my ninth-grade English teacher who encouraged me to pursue the school newspaper and creative writing when I was new to the public school system in Long Beach, Long Island, where I grew up from the age of 13. Little did he know that he helped play a pivotal role in launching my successful and satisfying writing career. After high school I attended Boston University's College of Communications, where I studied journalism and French, and spent a semester abroad in Paris interning at a local entertainment newspaper and living with a French family in the 19th sector. I was also lucky enough to spend some time in northern Portugal with my grandma and uncle who live outside of Aveiro, where my mom and her family immigrated from in the late 1960s.
In my free time, I enjoy traveling, dancing, walking along the beach, cooking, watching movies, reading and creative writing. I can be seen around town on the Commons, in the public library or in bookstores continually looking for interesting texts and materials to use in my classroom. I believe in incorporating current events and real-life applications into my teaching and want to make students more informed, critically thinking citizens of the world in which they live. New Roots' commitment to sustainability and improving our future one person, one community at a time are also principles I strongly believe in and feel will be necessary in order to have a future on this troubled planet and a healthy environment that will last from generation to generation.
Michele graduated from Boston University with her B.S. in print journalism and French. She earned her M.S. in English Education and Inclusive Special Education 7-12 at Syracuse University, an education school committed to
helping urban teens improve their possibilities. She is an SU Warren Fellow in Holocaust and Genocide Studies and is certified in the State of New York to teach secondary English Language Arts and Special Education-English. She has contributed on a children's book project with colleagues from Syracuse City Schools about lessons kids learn from the people around them and is in the process of working on a memoir during her free time in the summer.
"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson