About the Director

rue beckerman headshotMeet Jerusha (Rue) Beckerman, Director of the Art of Teaching Program

Being a small program is really an advantage for us, because we have such tight-knit groups of students among themselves as peers, but also between faculty and students and between faculty and other faculty. These close relationships and everything that grows from that, is what makes Sarah Lawrence and the Art of Teaching program special.

Background

Rue began teaching in Sarah Lawrence College’s MS in Art of Teaching program in 2017 and became Director in 2022. Previously, Rue was an adjunct faculty member in the Early Childhood and Childhood Education programs at Westchester Community College. She was also a former 2nd/3rd grade and 4th/5th grade teacher at the Ella Baker School (a New York City public school), and former infant and 3-5-year-olds teacher at Basic Trust Childcare Center. She has been a leader of teacher inquiry groups and professional development workshops and has given conference presentations for teachers, students of education and education scholars in a wide variety of settings, including the Art of Teaching Saturday Seminars. Rue was a Prospect Archives Practitioner Fellow in 2013. She currently serves as the higher ed representative on the White Plains City School District Staff Development Center Policy Board.

Rue received her BA from Bard College and her MSEd from Sarah Lawrence College.

Professional Interests

Rue’s professional interests include literacy, identity and equity in early childhood education, teacher agency, and self-chosen, open-ended making and doing in the classroom. 

Rue Answers Your Questions

Excerpted from SLC podcast.  Listen to the entire interview here.

What brought you into the field of education of young children?
I have always loved children. Even when I was a child myself, I really loved taking care of and playing with younger children. It's a thread that's always been in my life. And as I got older, I did a lot of babysitting. I didn't think that I was going to be a teacher as a profession though when I was young or all through college. After I graduated from college, I moved to New York City and one of my close friends in college, her mom was the director of a daycare center in Manhattan. She offered me a job there and I thought, well, this is great because I love kids so I was really excited to do that. But I didn't go into it thinking this is my career. In that first year, I was working in the infant room and through the mentorship of my director there and through the other teachers that I worked with, some of whom had been there a long time and others were new, I really fell in love with teaching. That was where I first, it might surprise people to hear this because I was working with infants, understood the intellectual side of teaching. I think that I came to understand that caretaking itself has this whole sort of emotional, intellectual piece to it. I had so many great conversations with my colleagues then and I took a couple of classes about child development and about education. I worked there for a few years. I eventually worked with the toddlers and then what we called the big kids, which were three to five year olds. So I sort of followed this same group of children through the classrooms those years, which was an amazing experience to just watch their development and get so attached to them over this time. Then I decided, okay, this is really what I want to do, but I think I'd like to teach elementary school and ultimately work with kids a little bit older. And so that's when I first came to the Sarah Lawrence Art of Teaching program, as a student. That was just a beautiful extension of the values I was starting to build in that work in early childhood. And then coming here and thinking about just expanding the sort of theoretical and scholarship knowledge, sort of building all this language around that and thinking about how it would play out for older kids. It was just a wonderful experience.

After you graduated from the Art of Teaching program, what did you do?
I worked in New York City as an elementary school teacher in a public school. I taught second and third grade and then fourth and fifth grade. So I've worked with infants to fifth graders and I've loved all of it. I know some teachers who really love one particular age and really don't ever want to teach any other grades. I didn't feel that way. I think each era of childhood has its own special things.  And then when my son was born, that's when I decided to leave the classroom. I worked at Westchester Community College, teaching there in their education programs, and then came back to Sarah Lawrence. And the rest is history. 

How would you describe the Art of Teaching program?
The Art of Teaching program leads to a Masters of Science in Education (MSEd). It is offered as a two-year master's program for outside applicants and as a combined degree or five-year program for Sarah Lawrence undergraduates. In their junior year, Sarah Lawrence undergraduate students are invited to apply to the program. If they are accepted, they start their work with us in their senior year. That year doubles up as the first year of their master's degree so with one additional year, they graduate with both a BA and a MSEd. The MSEd leads to New York State certification in three areas: Early childhood, which is birth to second grade, childhood, which is first to sixth grade, and early childhood students with disabilities. 

Do students ever get the chance to engage with children at some point in this course?
Our students work with children throughout their entire two years in the program. That's something really special and unique about us as a teacher preparation program. Many programs are structured so that you take courses and then do student teaching or field work or the other way around. We believe in undoing this dichotomy between theory and practice. We think the two things inform each other and are really integral to each other. So our students are doing either field work or student teaching during their entire time in the program. A lot of the readings and conversations we have in class are being brought back into that work with children. And then there's also lots of conversation in class about what's happening in their student teaching placements. Many of the assignments are centered around studying a particular aspect of a child and their literacy learning. So the two things are really intertwined for sure.

What do you love about Sarah Lawrence College?
I think that, in our program, we talk a lot about teaching as centering around relationships, that relationships are crucial to teaching, and really knowing each other well. What I love most about Sarah Lawrence is the really incredible close relationships I have with so many of my colleagues. And I think that our work is very personal. We're all very invested in it, and invested in working together and in each other's ideas. And so, I'm always really supported and inspired by them, intellectually and personally. And I think that is a rich and fertile ground for learning.

We also build really close relationships with our students. And I think that's an important part of what makes us special and unique. Being a small program is an advantage for us, because we have such tight-knit groups of students among themselves as peers, but also between faculty and students and between faculty and other faculty. So l guess that's what I would say, is the close relationships and everything that grows from that.

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