City Watch: Interview With Hit Artist Turned Special Ed Teacher
By Denise Benson
Epoch Times New York Staff
Dec 03, 2006
NEW YORK—Born and raised in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, Althea McQueen started singing with a local Bronx band in nightclubs. Then she auditioned and landed a role with a national theater company and later went on to perform with the rap and reggae group Reel 2 Real known for their hit song "I like to Move It."
Despite the fame, McQueen decided to fulfill a promise to herself she made long before: to earn her bachelor's degree. Returning to Brooklyn after touring in Canada and throughout Europe, she enrolled at the Brooklyn campus of the College of New Rochelle and graduated with honors.
McQueen then earned a master's degree in education, and now works as a New York City public school teacher in special education.
Q: Is there any special connection between your music and your love for taking care of kids?
A: No, not necessarily, I sing and dance music—music that is primarily played in clubs. It is two different worlds. When I am up on stage, I am a totally different person than I am in front of a classroom. No, there is no connection.
Q: For our readers that don't know, what is special education?
A: Special education is a different learning setting than the general education population. It's normally because a child can't learn at the same pace as the general education setting students, and that can run the gamut from because they have emotional problems all the way to physical problems.
Q: I hear you have been successful in transitioning special ed students back into the mainstream educational system. Can you explain how you do it, where others fail?
A: It's basically seeing things in students and bringing students to their fullest potential and maybe developing other skills that maybe stop them from functioning in a general education setting. Q: What is most difficult for you as a special education teacher in the New York City school system?
A: The most difficult thing for me is maneuvering around the administration. I don't want to make that sound like I'm this rogue teacher; there are a whole lot of standards and rules and things like that.
Okay, let's say this year we are all supposed to be teaching all year on the solar system. After a while it gets pretty boring, and I want to teach the kids other things as well, like cooperation, taking their time, and things like that.
What I did was I came up with this lesson where the kids would become the planets based on the information that they have learned and the characteristics of every planet, meaning sulfuric acid or rainstorms. The kids were able to become each planet and elaborate on who they were to become.
What I see in my colleagues is that they are afraid to take chances because of all of these new rules. I just try to keep myself interested, because I know whatever I'm interested in, I'm going to be interested in teaching and the kids are going to be interested in learning.
Q: Is there any particular student or planet that a student became that stuck in your mind?
A: Yes, one student of mine came out and said she was the planet Venus, and it was very hot and she had three volcanoes and that she may smell a little bit. That stuck with me, because I didn't really think that she would remember all of those things, but she really did.
Q: When do you feel your work is the most rewarding?
A: When they learn one little thing, when they learn any one little single thing, and they are able to give it back to me at some unexpected time. Those things make me really, really want to keep teaching forever.
Q: My final question, what would you like to leave in the hearts of your students that they can carry with them the rest of their lives?
A: That they can do it, in spite of whatever anyone has told them, that they can do it, that they can make it, that those things that people tell them that they can't do because of a learning disability or some other kind of disorder, that they can do it. That if they take their time, they can do it.