October 15, 2015
Recent Duke graduate Jeffrey Cicurel (English ‘15) leaves for his morning commute from the North Side of Chicago, where he grew up. He arrives at 88th and Aberdeen on the South Side, where he teaches English to high schoolers. “They’re great. And they listen,” he says of the 9th and 11th graders in his classroom at Hansberry College Prep, a charter school. “Because of the way that the school is run, it's a great place to work.” Cicurel is in his first year as a corp member of Teach for America.
When Cicurel arrived to Duke, he had no idea what he wanted to do afterwards. “The first year was a struggle between medicine, business, and law, which, let’s face it, are the three most common routes at Duke," he says. After his freshman year, he went out to lunch with a high school English teacher and discussed the possibility of teaching for the first time. "I still wasn’t a hundred percent sure what I wanted to do, but I had Teach for America in the back of my mind.”
Cicurel’s 11th grade class is now reading Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Are Watching God.
He begins the class with a reading quiz every day, followed by a worksheet for the English section of the ACT standardized college entrance exams. Then, he "dives in," leading his class in close readings and group discussions. Cicurel describes his students in a positive, proud, and matter-of-fact tone. “The class is just really supportive of each other,” he says.
When asked what he most wants his students to take away from the classroom, he responds with two lessons: the power of education and the importance of proficiency in reading and writing.
With regards to the strength of an education, Cicurel wants to communicate that schooling can “get you to wherever it is that you need to be” and “to whatever dream you might have.” He discusses his own high school years as a time during which he developed a deep appreciation of education and, specifically, of learning about social justice in the classroom. "I want my students to start to understand the opportunity gap in America, and why it exists," he says. “It’s important that the teacher is teaching about social issues, whether it be in a private school on the North Side of Chicago or a public school the South Side.”
Cicurel’s second message for his students is centered on the importance of reading. He stresses to them that reading and writing are “absolutely paramount, in whatever they do in life.”
"We're failing a lot of students of color in reading,” he says, referring to the American education system. “And when you can't read, your entire education is going to be stunted. And education is what gets these kids to success.”
Cicurel pushes his students to read closely and articulate their thoughts, skills that he found emphasized in his own education at Duke. “The humanities teach you a way to think that I'm not necessarily sure you get anywhere else,” he says. “English majors graduate and go and do jobs where they're not writing papers. It doesn't matter. They’ve earned a way to think.”
Sofia Manfredi
Digital Media Intern
Duke University English Department
English Department
