Social Studies and English Departments Welcome New Teachers to the Hive

Mr. Murphy, photographed here in Costa Rica, traveled all throughout the Americas before he became a teacher.

By JACOB LOSHINSKY, CHRYSTIE WU, ABRORBEK KARIMJONOV, and BESMAN HOTI

This fall, the English department welcomed new teachers Ms. Edina Abuqattam, Ms. Tonianne Dryden, Mr. Luidgine Fustin, Mr. Jordan Finn, Ms. Rosalie Teverow, and Ms. Laura Thurber, and the Social Studies department said hello to Ms. Sabrina Falanga, Mr. Eric Torkiver, and Mr. Brendan Murphy.

We sat down with Mr. Murphy, Mr. Finn, and Ms. Abuquattam to learn more about these new Hornets.

MR. MURPHY

Mr. Brendan Murphy was born and raised in Seattle, Washington, where it was “really gray” and “not as wet as they say it is,” he said. He attended Western Washington University where he got his bachelor’s degree in theater.

Along with interests like reading, going to history museums, traveling, and going to the theater, Mr. Murphy also has a love for needle felting.

“I really enjoy when things are smaller than they are supposed to be, so I make models,” he said. “I needle-felt tiny things. It's when you take felt and poke it with a needle a whole bunch of times to make it into a creature, models of houses, planes, furniture, things like that.”

Mr. Murphy also enjoys traveling to different parts of the world. He has traveled to Ireland, England, and Costa Rica, and he backpacked through Mexico, Belize, and Guatemala for three months after graduating college.

However, Mr. Murphy doesn’t just enjoy traveling for the views and pictures, he enjoys the lessons learned along the way.

“The world is a big place with different people, but until you’re actually immersed in the sights and sounds of another space, it’s really hard to grasp the fact that things are so different,” he said.

His favorite adventure was a French pencil factory that used to be a prison under the Vichy regime during World War II. “What was incredible was that these people were here for 3-4 years and they developed an incredible culture and a society within themselves,” he said.

His 8th grade social studies teacher “was the first person to show me that I can be openly passionate about my love for history and stories,” he said. “He taught me that I was important and that I can see myself in history.”

He also found inspiration through his high school English teacher. “She was notoriously mean, very strict, and an incredibly harsh grader,” he said. “But that meant when you got a good grade on a paper, you knew that you had really succeeded. She encouraged us and challenged us to think in new ways.”

Before becoming a teacher, Mr. Murphy worked in the Tenement Museum, The Museum of Education, the Brooklyn public library archive, a zoo, and even drove tour buses in Alaska.There was a lot more than a love of history that drew him to teaching, though.

“I like the relationships I'm able to form with my students,” he said. “I had a true teacher moment where we were talking about Rome and someone said, ‘This reminds me of when we talked about Ancient India.’ It was really satisfying.”

MR. FINN

At the age of 14, Mr. Jordan Finn moved from California to his parents’ hometown in Billings, Montana. After high school, he attended the University of Montana, where he received his baccalaureate in English.

In 2014, Mr. Finn went to South America slone, without any technology, and navigated his way through Ecuador, Chile, Peru, and Colombia with a book.

“It was a life-changing experience. I learned so many things when I was there,” Mr. Finn said. “It was terrifying. I got chased by dogs in the middle of nowhere, taxi drivers would give me fake money. I also got pickpocketed in Bogota, Colombia.”

After those four months, Mr. Finn moved to New York because it was “the most different place from Montana I could find without leaving the country.” The chaos of New York was the “antithesis of the peaceful rural life” of Montana, he said.

Mr. Finn attended Hunter College for his master’s degree and soon after became a substitute teacher for the DOE. He worked at James Madison, Brooklyn College Academy, and for the last six years, Midwood. But now he is here as an official teacher, with three true crime classes and two sophomore English classes.

“This is by far my favorite school,” Mr Finn said. “It was kind of a dream to be able to teach here.”

It was through the help of his high school AP U.S. History teacher that he found an interest in education.

“[My AP U.S. History] teacher really challenged us,” he said. “He wasn't dumbing it down; it was really really involved and really structured. I liked being challenged by the rigor, I liked the structure, and I've been trying to replicate that.”

College was also a huge reason why Mr. Finn became interested in education.

“I fell in love with reading,” he said. “I fell in love with books. What really interests me in teaching is storytelling. I didn't really become a writer until after college, so now I appreciate writing a lot more.”

Mr. Finn recently had his own fiction published in Montana. “It's not The New Yorker or anything, but still I've been working towards it for about eight years,” he said.

Mr. Finn also has a musical side, playing in multiple bands with his friends and brother. He founded and co-runs an annual musical festival in Montana.

“It’s called the Julia Louis-Dryfest,” Mr. Finn said. “Every August, we have about fifty to seventy bands come to Billings. It's a blast.”

He’s also a gamer and advises the Video Game Club at Midwood.

Mr. Finn believes in persistence in pursuing new things. “If you just stick with something, you're going to get way better than you thought,” he said. “It's never too late to start something new.”

MS. ABUQATTAM

Ms. Edina Abuqattam grew up here in Brooklyn, right on Beverly Road. She attended Midwood as a student and graduated from Brooklyn College with an English degree in 2018. “I’ve always been in the neighborhood,” she said.

Ms. Abuqattam started working at Midwood last year as a long-term sub, where she learned the ins and outs of being a teacher while replacing a staff member who was on maternity leave. She covered all five of the teacher’s classes.

“I treated it as my first year of teaching,” she said. Now, Ms. Abuqattam teaches Creative Writing and 9th grade English.

Ms. Abuqattam attributes her experience as a student at Midwood to part of the reason why she decided to start teaching here. “As a person with a mixed background (Palestinian and Albanian), the diversity in this school is part of what appealed to me,” she said.

Her time at Midwood so far has brought on nostalgia. “A lot of my teachers are still here,” she said. “I love being able to learn from them. And the kids remind me of the kids I grew up with and a lot of my childhood friends, so I love it.”

In her free time, Ms. Abuqattam enjoys indulging in books and movies, as well as baking. “I bake for my kids. I made them all brownies two days ago,” she said.

She’s also a parent to two cats. “My cats are my best friends, so when I'm not spoiling them and running with them around the house, I’m baking, reading a book, or watching some Marvel, Star Wars, or Harry Potter,” she said.

Ms. Abuqattam credits her childhood English teachers for inspiring her career. “Growing up, they were always my favorites,” she said. “They offered me the most support. I wanted to be able to support kids in the same way – to be their friends and help them grow. English was one of my favorite subjects, so I was able to combine my two favorite things in the world and become an English teacher.”

“It’s very rewarding to have students come back to me after class for help,” she said. “Being able to give my students someone to trust just makes me happy. Remember, if you don’t communicate with your teachers or with the people around you, they're not going to know where you're struggling.”

Teachers are only human, she jokingly explained. “We are all a lot nicer than maybe some of us come off,” she said. “We’re here to support you, remember that.”