Elementary School Archives

Erin Sauchelli Farrell

September 8, 2020

Erin Sauchelli Farrell graduated from Lafayette College with a BA in International Affairs and Spanish, and with honors from New York University with a dual MA in Teaching Spanish as a Foreign Language and Teaching English as a Second Language. She draws on experience from her career in advertising and marketing, as well teaching different subjects and age levels, to help support students in language and literacy development. Erin loves to travel and spent several semesters abroad during her time in undergraduate and graduate school.

Erin spent 10 years teaching elementary age children in various districts across the New York City public school system, from Title 1 schools in Brooklyn, to high performing District 2 schools in Manhattan. As a private tutor, she brings her expertise in supporting children in literacy, phonics, and bridging language development with content area instruction to her practice. Erin is well versed in phonics instruction, specifically Wilson Fundations, an Orton-Gillingham based curriculum, and Letterland. She believes in strong phonemic awareness as a foundation for reading as well as writing. She can support struggling readers and writers by diagnosing their areas of weakness and creating individualized programs to help them move forward. She also has experience with teaching across content areas, such as mathematics, science and social studies, and she loves to bridge the concrete to the abstract with manipulatives in math instruction. Erin believes in a strengths-based approach in her instruction, and spends time getting to know her students in order to foster confidence and motivation.

When Erin is not teaching, she enjoys cooking, spending time outdoors, whether on the golf course or ski slopes, and most of all, being with her dog – who may make an appearance during a virtual tutoring session!

Bobby Irven

September 7, 2020

Bobby Irven is a private tutor who specializes in Mandarin Chinese, ESL, the humanities, virtual learning, research and special education. He is also proficient in a variety of digital design and communications software, as well as recently leveraging online and application based tools to collaborate, learn and communicate. He has traveled and worked around the world, and currently works at a large international nonprofit doing communications for the poverty eradication team. He has over a decade of experience working with students of all ages in small classroom settings and private tutoring.

Bobby Irven earned his B.A. in Chinese Studies and Political Science at Rutgers University, and then continued his education, receiving an M.A. in International Development from Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand, and conducted his thesis research in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

He is passionate about bringing a unique teaching style to each student interaction in order to ensure no one is left behind, and has worked with a wide variety of students, from recently arrived refugees to children with special needs. Bobby Irven loves combining new or alternative resources to complement traditional methods. This includes sessions or a focus on executive functioning: ensuring students are using the tools, technology and resources available to succeed in and out of the classroom.

When he is not traveling around the world to various work field sites or helping his students, Bobby enjoys playing competitive volleyball, advocating for social justice, scuba diving, and learning new languages and cultures. You might even catch him in a dance class or two!

Dan Muro

September 7, 2020

Dan Muro is a private tutor who specializes in social studies, language arts, Portuguese, and Spanish. Dan grew up in New Jersey, where he attended The Pingry School from kindergarten through 12th grade. In High School, he was an honor roll student and frequent discussion leader in class, particularly in his favorite subjects: biology, English, Spanish, and political science. Outside of the classroom, Dan was a competitive swimmer and a founding member of the Coffeehouse Society, which organized open-mic nights for the school’s student artists. He also worked as a camp counselor at the Montclair Yard School of Art’s summer camp.

After graduating from Pingry, Dan Muro attended Wesleyan University, where he earned his B.A. in anthropology. A native speaker of Portuguese, Dan had the opportunity to share his love of Brazilian culture and language as a course assistant for beginner and intermediate Portuguese, facilitating group tutoring sessions and providing individually tailored support to students. He also worked as a woodshop monitor, teaching student artists how to properly and safely operate heavy machinery and tools. His sophomore year, Dan designed his own study abroad program in São Paulo, Brazil, where he conducted ethnographic and archival research with an architecture office supporting community-led housing initiatives and design processes. Dan Muro currently works as a writer and consultant for cultural institutions, such as The Academy of Natural Sciences at Drexel University, Philadelphia Contemporary, and the Nelson-Atkins Museum. As one of the founding team members of DVDL Design Decisions, a boutique consultancy, Dan assisted in the design of new education, curatorial, and space design strategies for world-class museums.

Dan draws on his patience, listening skills, and love of learning, as well as his real-world problem-solving experience, to meet each student where they are. He offers support tailored to each student’s needs on test-taking strategies, reading comprehension and analysis, integrating new concepts into their intellectual toolkit, and problem-solving tactics across subjects.

When he is not teaching or tutoring, Dan can be found reading poetry and old urban planning documents, writing songs with friends, or enjoying the outdoors.

Vanessa Khemlani

August 21, 2020

Vanessa Khemlani is a NYS-certified teacher with a dual master’s degree in early childhood education and early childhood special education. Vanessa cares deeply about child development and how best to support growth and learning at every stage. For over eighteen years, she has worked in classrooms and homes in New York City, Long Island, and Lower Westchester. She specializes in cooperative learning, supportive interventions, multi-sensory lesson plans, differentiated instruction, organizational skills, social / emotional skill development, literacy instruction, and classroom curriculum support for early childhood and elementary school students.

Working in a multitude of school settings over the course of her career has afforded Vanessa the opportunity to see the implementation of different approaches and curricula. She calls on these experiences frequently when creating individualized educational programs. Incorporating elements from The Greenspan Floortime approach, Reggio Emilia, and Montessori, Vanessa has worked with a large and wonderfully diverse group of children in their schools and at home.

For the past ten years, she has been an independent educational facilitator working with students, families, and school administration to support successful learning. Vanessa works with students one-on-one, both in the classroom and at home, integrating emotional, intellectual, social, and physical aspects of learning.

Vanessa is well versed in the protocols of CSE and CPSE and works with educational advocates to support families as they navigate assessments, participate in IEP meetings, and testify at Department of Education impartial hearings. In addition, she assists in coordinating therapy referrals, neuropsychological evaluations, and ongoing school admissions process. When working in the home, Vanessa creates a curriculum to support each child’s growth in and out of school. Vanessa has received Orton-Gillingham training and incorporates this approach when developing literacy programs.

With a strong understanding of child development and a working knowledge of how children learn, Vanessa builds working relationships with her students and their families to support sustained academic success.

Otis Kriegel

August 18, 2020

Starting as an international outdoor adventure guide, Otis Kriegel made his way to the classroom afterwards and has been teaching and tutoring privately for the past 18 years. Having taught in New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Berlin, Germany, Otis has taught all of the grades 1st -8th in monolingual, dual language (Spanish/English), and fully inclusive classroom setting as well as also created and taught a Digital Arts program for a public Middle School in New York City.

Otis Kriegel has expertise with numerous literacy and math programs and approaches such as Words Their Way, Teachers College Reading & Writing Project, Sounds in Motion, Fundations (an Orton-Gillingham based approach), TERC (Investigations), Engage (Zearn), Math City and Marilyn Burns methods of teaching math. He is also well versed in the FOSS and Amplify science curriculums and is very experienced in mixing and matching different curricula and approaches to match the student, group or class with whom he is working.

A product of a Montessori education himself, Otis Kriegel is familiar with these methods as well and utilizes them in his everyday teaching. Otis is also comfortable teaching remotely using many different programs such as Google Classroom, Zoom, Raz Kids, Zearn, Loom, Flipgrid and other platforms that make remote learning both effective, captivating and fun!

Otis Kriegel was an adjunct professor at New York University and a guest speaker at The Bank Street College of Education, City College of New York, Touro College and others. An experienced presenter, Oits has spoken at numerous conferences and given workshops to hundreds of new and veteran teachers alike, as well as consulted with educational administrators and principals. He wrote Everything a New Elementary School Teacher REALLY Needs to Know (But Didn’t Learn in College) (Free Spirit, 2013) and Starting School Right: How do I plan for a successful first week in my classroom? (ASCD Arias, 2016). Most recently, Otis has been giving virtual workshops to corporations and organizations such as The Gap, The Office of the Mayor of the City of New York, Hoot Suite, TMP and others on how families can balance working from home while educating their child during the pandemic.

Otis is also an artist, who cofounded the public art collective, Illegal Art, whose book, Suggestion (August 2005), was published by Chronicle Books. Their work has been featured by such media outlets as National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered,” New York Magazine, Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, Public Art Review and The New York Times Op Art page. His work has been exhibited, commissioned and published in catalogs throughout the Americas, Europe, Asia and The Middle East, and he was an artist-in-residence at the 2013 SXSW Festival.

Otis Kriegel was also commissioned by The White House to participate in the South By South Lawn Festival (Obama Administration). In 2018, Otis gave a TED Talk about this work.

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Erin Sauchelli Farrell

Vanessa Khemlani

Otis Kriegel

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