Sarah Pearl: Victoria tutor

Certified Tutor

I am a graduate of Yale College. I received my Bachelor of Arts in English and, in addition, completed the requirements for Writing Concentration in fiction and was named a Yale Journalism Scholar. While at Yale, I founded the Yale Harbor Scholar Program to support undergraduate students that currently are or were in out-of-home care. Since graduation, I've worked as an educator and child welfare advocate. I am presently an M.S. ed candidate at the University of Pennsylvania and a faculty member at Greenwich Country Day School, where I teach 8th-grade Humanities and dance. Before joining GCDS, I taught 10 and 11 grade English and dance at the Lawrenceville School. I volunteered twice a week, taught poetry and dance classes, and developed programming at HomeWorks, an after-school boarding program for public high-school students in Trenton, NJ. In my travels and extensive studies, I can honestly say nothing brings me as much joy as teaching children and students to find their voice, cultivate curiosity and develop as emerging writers and thinkers. When I consider the challenges and joys of teaching young students writing, it is most near to the process of producing a photograph from a roll film by hand. After plunging a blank page of photo paper into a chemical bath, a former memory emerges as a fully formed image. In this metaphor, the student is simultaneously the image and the artist, teasing and experimenting with ways to amplify and refine their voice. The result is a permanent and seismic shift in perspective--and most importantly, how they see themselves. While I remind all of my students striving and facilitating personal growth is admirable, I also emphasize that practice, enthusiasm, and dedication can help build the confidence and skills to perform and achieve in the classroom with consistency and joy. I aim to model this for them, as it was modeled for be by the educators in my family and throughout the formal education I received from my numerous and supremely talented artists and academics I studied with at Yale and UPenn, and that I've met since then. When I'm not teaching English, writing, or history, I can be found in the dance studio, out with my camera, writing a poem, or trying to perfect a new pie recipe.