Gabriel

My career as an educator began in Seoul where I taught and tutored English as Second Language. This gave me a passion for teaching students in their early development, from 9 years old and into secondary school. Following my time in Seoul, I moved to New York City where I received a Masters of Fine Art in writing from Hunter College and was hired to teach the Distinguished Living Writers course (DLW) in which my students read fiction, poetry, and other texts by contemporary writers such as Margaret Atwood, Colm Tóibín, and Salman Rushdie (among many others) before meeting and discussing their work in the classroom. Most of my students were first year college students (17 or 18 years old), spoke English as a second language, and had recently arrived from South East Asia, the Middle East, and South America. Tailoring my lessons to the various needs of these students taught me to work productively with a wide variety of learning styles as I helped these students transition into their new environment. I soon became the supervisor of this course and was offered the opportunity to develop another: Explorations in the Arts. In this course I sought to make contemporary art relevant through reading philosophical, political, and historical texts that illuminated the underlying significance of whatever work we were experiencing, whether it be visual art, opera, drama, or dance. During this time I was also helping to found and run a non-profit library and publisher of poetry, critical, and philosophical texts. In 2018 I was awarded a Fellowship at the Fines Arts Work Center in Provincetown, where I finished my debut collection of poems (now published by Archway Editions). Since that time I have turned my focus to tutoring and writing, with hopes of finishing my debut novel this year.

I'm a writer and understand that clear communication and critical thinking are key to any student’s education, not to mention their future career paths. My aim is to always sharpen these skills in my students and to instill skills in text analysis, essay planning, comprehension, and critical thinking to ensure academic achievement and excellence. I have vast experience designing curricula that fortify written and spoken literacy across a wide variety of age groups and skill levels, whether 11+, 13+, GCSE or A Levels. My decade as an educator in New York City has made me adept at generating stimulating conversations with students to sharpen their criticality and creativity, which empowers students in the classroom as well as in the interview and entrance process to independent schools and universities. Above all I seek to design a rigorous yet pleasurable learning environment in line with my students’ interests and passions because I believe this leads to lifelong learning and growth. To this end, my tutoring sessions incorporate a dynamic range of writing exercises, pop quizzes, deep reading challenges, creative writing ''icebreakers'', and vocabulary fortification schemes. As a generalist in the Humanities, I am passionate about self-education, exploration, and making connections across diverse fields.

I read and I write and I row. To give you an idea of my reading list at present, I am in the midst of Grand Hotel Abyss - a group biography of the Frankfurt School (a group of Jewish German philosophers who worked and wrote during and after the rise of Nazism). I am also making my way through essays by Umberto Eco and a book of poems by Diane Seuss. As for my writing, I am hard at work on a novel, have recently finished a draft of a screenplay, and continue to write poetry as well as essays. I am also a part of a coastal rowing team and compete in races throughout the spring and summer.