Banana Kelly teacher honored for creativity

By Justyna Malota
jmalota@hunter.cuny.edu

When he was in second grade, Nicola Vitale’s teacher challenged him to repair a broken toilet in his school. With just the guidance of a how-to workbook, he and a classmate fixed it.

“It was very empowering,” recalled Vitale, a teacher at Banana Kelly High School. The experience, remembered after all these years, helped inspire him to invent the class that has now made him one of the winners of the first annual Sloan Award for Excellence in Teaching Science and Mathematics.

“A lot of kids say, ‘I know this because my teacher told me,’ but that kind of knowledge isn’t what I want them to have. I want them to know because they have experienced it,” said Vitale, who has been teaching for nearly a decade.

Housed in a former elementary school, Banana Kelly High School lacks a proper laboratory. And so, in 2003, Vitale, moved his lessons from the confines of a classroom to the banks of the Bronx River.

With scientific instruments and buckets in hand, on a recent chilly morning Vitale’s class explored the river. Some fetched water for sampling, while others recorded their latest calculations. It was a typical science class for these ninth graders, who were eager to discover how cloudy the water was, and, maybe, to find a crayfish, or two.

As students poured the cool river water into a turbidity tube, an instrument that measures the water’s clarity or cloudiness, Vitale held the tube stable on the wooden deck. Meanwhile, Anna Lerew, a math teacher, helped students with their observations as they recorded them in their lab books.

“I would do better in my other classes if they were more like this,” said Yamilet Torres, 16. In those classes, Torres said, “we barely go outside, but with Nic we experiment with things outside.”

The Sloan award, which was presented at a ceremony on November 5, honored seven math and science teachers in New York City schools. Presented jointly by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the Fund for the City of New York, it includes a cash prize of $7,500–$5,000 for the teacher and $2,500 to each school’s science or mathematics program.

Being recognized was not only an honor for him but for Banana Kelly, said Vitale. “It’s a small school, that’s not on the radar,” he said. “The big elite programs are the ones that usually get recognized.” The other award winners teach at the Bronx High School of Science, the High School of American Studies and Wings Academy in the Bronx, Townsend Harris in Queens, John Dewey in Brooklyn and the High School of Economics and Finance in Manhattan.

The award citation for Vitale notes that overcoming a childhood learning disability led him toward hands-on learning. “When you put a bunch of students in a room and hold them captive, they are most likely to be resistant,” said Vitale.

“He was intellectually curious. He wanted to get the kids out there. He wants to go the extra mile,” said Anne-Marie Runfola, deputy director of the Bronx River Alliance, who helped Vitale create the Bronx River curriculum. “Generating curiosity” is his goal for his students, Vitale said.

“He shows a lot of respect for his students and they show it right back,” said Damian Griffin, education director of the Bronx River Alliance.

“Some stuff is hard, but he makes it easier for us by trying to make us understand,” said Banana Kelly student Felix Garcia, 15.

“He makes science fun,” said his classmate Davias Paulimo, 14.

A version of this story appeared in the December 2009/January 2010 issue of The Hunts Point Express.