Teaching for Life

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Any thought of law school vanished the moment Ferrin Bujan stepped into a classroom as a student teacher. It was her last year at Queens College, where she was majoring in math and education, and she had been a little uncertain about her future.

“The world turned,” she said. “This is where I wanted to be. I enjoyed helping students who were struggling and knowing I could make a difference for them.”

Ms. Bujan, 24, is now in her third year teaching ninth-grade math at Brooklyn Community Arts and Media High School in Fort Greene. It is not an easy job: she gets up before dawn so she can be at school early, spends the day teaching, then goes home to grade papers and do her own homework for the master’s degree she is pursuing in special education. She teaches on Saturdays and during the summer. Even her social life revolves around other teachers.

Now, she is the subject of a continuing project by Alexis Lambrou, a 22-year-old photographer who was curious about how new teachers fared in the public school system. Some of her friends had gone from college to the Teach for America program, which sends recent graduates into public schools after a five-week training institute.

Alexis Lambrou/Magnum Foundation Ms. Bujan by the piano at her parents’ house in Queens. Her parents are West Indian, from Trinidad. She recently moved out of their house into her own apartment in Brooklyn.

“What’s it like for a 22-year-old to be teaching an 18-year-old” Ms. Lambrou asked. “How can you learn to be a teacher in five weeks I was skeptical about that.”

Supported by a Magnum Foundation Emergency Fund Fellowship, she set out to find the right teacher. Most schools did not return her calls. But a meeting with the principal of Brooklyn Community Arts and Media High School went well, since the school was interested in using the arts for community engagement. Administrators paired Ms. Lambrou with Ms. Bujan, the school’s youngest teacher.

Ms. Bujan was neither in Teach for America nor in her first year in the classroom. But she proved to be a fascinating subject. The school itself was small, and a sense of community prevailed. Though Ms. Lambrou thought a young teacher would have a hard time handling rambunctious teenagers, she found Ms. Bujan to be stoic and in control.

“A lot of kids, when they speak to her, it’s like they’re talking to a friend,” Ms. Lambrou said. “Some of them will sit during their lunch hour and talk with her in the classroom. They like her and look up to her.”

Even so, Ms. Bujan is clear about her role.

Alexis Lambrou/Magnum Foundation Ms. Bujan checks the sign-in list for parent-teacher conferences. Fewer than half of her students’€™ parents or guardians showed up.

“I have to step it up a bit more than other teachers,” she said. “I don’t want them to get the impression I am their friend. I am here to be their teacher. I don’t want that line to be crossed.”

While she handles that task well, Ms. Bujan acknowledges that the job has challenges that often go unnoticed by education critics. While teachers are blamed if their students do not score well on standardized tests, she said, schools in needy areas often lack basic resources like computers and textbooks.

“It’s hard to take the criticism and hear people say the things they say about the profession,” she said. “Someone who has those feelings should try walking into a school one day and try to step into a teacher’s shoes. They would find it extremely hard and would probably reconsider their opinions about what a teacher should be doing and how the system is working.”

The time Ms. Lambrou has spent with Ms. Bujan has made her even more curious about her original project idea, the Teach for America model.

“I feel she is way more qualified,” she said of Ms. Bujan. “Sure, a lot of it is learning on the job, but Ferrin has the foundation and background to walk into a classroom more confidently, and it shows.”

Ms. Lambrou will have a chance to do that herself next week, when she begins teaching a photography class at the school.

“I started this story on young teachers and became one myself,” she said. “I’m not sure what to make of that. But I’m excited, and I’ll be spending more time with Ferrin. There’s always more to shoot.”

Alexis Lambrou/Magnum Foundation A view of the school track from Ms. Bujan’s classroom window at 6:30 a.m.

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