The start of any new school year is exciting, especially because of the opportunity to meet and welcome new faculty into the Fieldston community. Each of these faculty members brings a breadth of knowledge into the curriculum or field of work they will be focusing on, and we are incredibly fortunate that they chose to come to Fieldston for the 2018-2019 school year.
Anneka Ward
Anneka Ward (she/her) will be joining the Fieldston faculty this year as the Middle and Upper School Nurse. She attended Columbia Prep for High School, then Kenyon College for her undergraduate degree, and finally Beth Israel School of Nursing for her RN degree. Ward worked at the Calhoun School on the Upper West Side for the past five years as their Pre-K through 12th grade school nurse. She also worked at Bank Street Summer Camp as camp nurse, and has had various other camp positions since 2004.
Ward is especially enthusiastic about starting with a new group of students, teachers, and faculty. She recently moved to Westchester and wanted to continue working as a school nurse at a progressive educational institution, one much closer to home. Beyond her life as a nurse, Ward was recently engaged to her partner Jon. “We are going to take time to plan the wedding so we have time to acclimate to our new jobs –– he works as a high school physics teacher,” Ward said.
Antika Singh
This coming year, Antika Singh (she/her) will be teaching history at Fieldston. From the tri-state area, Singh went to Rutgers University and Bank Street College of Education. Prior to Fieldston, Singh taught for four years at the Georgetown Day School in Washington D.C., and most recently for two years at the Town School for Boys in San Francisco. After earning her master’s degree in 2012 and leaving New York, now six years later, Singh cannot wait to be back.
Singh commented that ever since she was young, she has thought of Fieldston as the epitome of progressive education.
“As a progressive educator, I can think of no better place to continue my journey teaching,” she said. Singh also is excited to be back in a co-ed classroom, on top of meeting new students, colleagues, and being part of the institution as a whole.
JB Brager
Originally from Baltimore, Maryland, JB Brager (they/them) received their undergraduate degree from the University of Maryland, College Park, majoring in American Studies and one of the first cohorts to finish the program in LGBT Studies. As well, Brager participated in the Jiménez-Porter Writers House program, where they began drawing comics, inspiring them to to work as a freelance illustrator and designer, which they still do today. Following their time at UMD, Brager did their graduate work at Rutgers University in Women’s and Gender studies, with a dissertation project focusing on how we remember settler colonial history and racial violence in the United States and in Southwest Africa, particularly Namibia.
At Fieldston, Brager will be teaching U.S. History and The World at War, as well as African Studies during the spring semester. At Rutgers, they taught a variety of courses, including “Gender, Race & Visual Media”, “The Gendered Body: Horror and the Grotesque”, and “Feminist Theory: Historical Perspectives.” In addition to loving the history department at Fieldston, especially the faculty within it, Brager is especially interested in and hopes to be involved in “the kinds of conversations that are happening, at the department level and school-wide, for example about progressive education, social justice, diversity and equity.” Brager is looking forward to getting to know all of the students and learning about everything that makes Fieldston so special.
Lan Cheng
For the past 14 years, Lan Cheng (she/her) has been a Chinese teacher first at the college level and then at the high school level. From Beijing, Cheng has taught Mandarin Chinese at a variety of schools, from IUP, to Peking University, to Cornell University, to the George School, to Fieldston. Cheng taught at Fieldston for five years, from 2009 to 2014!
Cheng had a wonderful experience teaching and living at the George School, and had the chance to grow as a teacher. Nevertheless, Cheng is excited to bring that knowledge back to Fieldston.
“I am excited about getting to know a new generation of Fieldston students, and reconnecting with my former colleagues and the Fieldston community,” Cheng said. Cheng also looks forward to being back in New York and all that the city has to offer.
Alexandra Fields
After growing up in Chicago, Alexandra Fields (she/her) moved to New York to attend Barnard College. At Barnard, Fields studied English Literature with a concentration in Creative Writing. A few years after graduating, Fields went back to school and earned her MFA in Writing from Sarah Lawrence College. She primarily writes fiction, and currently resides in Brooklyn with her husband.
Fields will be joining the college counseling team at Fieldston. Her previous work experience includes working in the Barnard College office of admissions as an Admissions Officer and Assistant to the Dean of Enrollment Management. Fields oversaw recruitment and admissions with a particular focus on underrepresented students. After Barnard, she went on to work at Achievement First Brooklyn High School, a public charter school in BedStuy, as a college counselor.
“I love the emphasis Fieldston puts on independence in students, the progressive ethics curriculum, and how Fieldston students can be athletes and artists and academics all at once if they so choose,” Fields said. Fields is most excited about getting to know the students and families she will be aiding in the college process, and learning what it really feels like to be a student at Fieldston.
Arhm Choi Wild
Arhm Choi Wild (she/her) will be entering Fieldston this year as the Middle and Upper School diversity coordinator. Although Wild grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan, she moved to New York seven years ago to pursue her MFA in Poetry at Sarah Lawrence college, and has been teaching in the city for the past five. Wild comes from a background of weaving social justice education into her English classrooms.
“I am thrilled at the possibility of being able to exclusively focus on the social justice issues that inspired me to teach in the first place. I chose Fieldston because it is rare to find academic institutions that walk their talk in terms of diversity and equity. I am so excited about the possibilities that working in an intentional community can foster,” said Wild. She is also excited to learn about the community and find manners to expand the school’s ‘collective consciousness’ on matters of social justice.
We are excited to introduce the new faculty members into the Fieldston community. With their passion for the place and enthusiasm for working with teenagers, it’s evident they will help foster an even stronger sense of community at Fieldston in the year to come.
