Discussion Topics: curriculum design | educational equity | writing | poetry reading
Travels From: New York City Area
Though she has taught high school English at New York’s prestigious Horace Mann School for the last 24 years, Rebecca Bahr began her teaching career in Central Africa while serving in the Peace Corps.
Trained as a school health educator, she taught elementary school teachers in Grimari, a rural district in the landlocked country of Central African Republic (formerly known as Ubangi-Shari). Inspired by that experience, she went to New York City to begin graduate studies at Teachers College, Columbia University. After a stint teaching 7th grade English in Harlem, NY, she spent the next five years in Bangkok, Thailand, teaching ESL at Rangsit University and high school English at Ruamrudee International School where she pioneered an Asian Studies humanities course for seniors.
Upon returning to NYC, Bahr taught briefly at the Dalton School and the Rudolf Steiner School. In 2021, a student at Horace Mann inspired by the documentary College behind Bars by Lynn Novick (herself a school alumnus) suggested she teach Bridging the Divide, an English elective on Modern American Identity.
In this revolutionary course, fourth year students study American poetry, fiction, and non-fiction with women incarcerated in Maine. As of the third year teaching the course, Bahr has been able to bring her students to Maine in person to meet their incarcerated counterparts, thereby bridging a divide imposed by geography to bring bright minds together and explore what it means to be an American
