Bard MAT Alum Alhassan Susso ’12 Named 2019 New York State Teacher of the Year

Alhassan Susso MAT ’12: Inspiring Teens 

Alhassan Susso MAT ’12 is New York State’s 2019 Teacher of the Year. Born and raised in the Gambia, Susso moved to the United States when he was 16 years old to join his father and brother who had immigrated years earlier. He attended public school in Poughkeepsie, New York, and planned to enter Dutchess Community College for a degree in business administration. The week before his high school graduation, however, he received news that the roof of his grandmother’s home in Gambia, where she had raised him, had collapsed during the rainy season, making her house uninhabitable. 

“I faced the decision of whether to pursue my personal path or to help someone who had given me so much. The choice was easy,” says Susso. He put his education on hold and worked two full-time jobs—the 4 p.m. to midnight shift at Price Chopper and the midnight to 8 a.m. shift at Stop and Shop—until he had saved enough money to rebuild his grandmother’s house, build another house for his mother, and help them move in. 

He was finally able to enroll in Dutchess Community College, but soon another family tragedy struck. His younger sister was diagnosed with hepatitis B and lacked access to necessary medical treatment. She applied for a visa to come to the United States, but it was denied. “Four months later, my sister passed away,” Susso says. “Within 12 hours of her death, my grandmother also passed away from a heart attack.” He left school and flew back to the Gambia the next day to be with his family. “Upon my return, I had a new sense of clarity about what I wanted to do with my life. My goal was to help families, specifically immigrant families, live meaningful lives and develop compelling futures.” 

Susso shifted his academic focus to prelaw and attended the University of Vermont, where he received a bachelor of arts in political science and history. After taking the LSAT, he was preparing his law school applications when a conversation with his mentor and prelaw adviser made him rethink this path. If he really wanted to help immigrant kids and families, was being a lawyer the best way? 

“My adviser made the point that by the time I reached these kids, they would already be on the road to either jail or deportation. It made me think very deeply. Education became the obvious choice,” says Susso, who believes, quoting Nobel Laureate Nelson Mandela, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” Susso applied to Bard’s MAT Program, won a Petrie Fellowship, and began his master’s program two days after graduation. He found his calling teaching history, government, economics, and personal development. Bard’s inquiry-focused approach to learning, he says, influenced his teaching practice. “How I teach history is the way I am able to engage my students. Instead of memorizing dates, we develop research skills and strategies to try to understand the decision-making process that led to those events.” 

Susso, who lives in Poughkeepsie with his wife and two young children, wakes up each day at 4 a.m. and commutes to the International Community High School (ICHS), a public school in the South Bronx, where he has taught since 2012. Located in the poorest congressional district in the United States, the school is designated for recently arrived immigrants. Students come from 30 different nations, mostly in Latin America, West Africa, and the Middle East, and speak 15 languages. Susso teaches approximately 120 students a year. “The philosophical foundation of my teaching is rooted in building relationships, so I get to know my students very deeply on an individual level,” he says. “My family comes from a long line of griots [storytellers and oral historians] and we begin each school year doing a lot of oral storytelling around personal histories, goals, perceived challenges, and visions. We are able to build meaningful connections with others this way. It is very difficult to hate someone if you know their story.” 

When Susso began teaching at ICHS, only 28 percent of its graduates went on to college and about half of them ended up dropping out before receiving higher degrees. “I know the detriment of not finishing school,” says Susso. “Many end up working multiple minimum wage jobs, a life that leads to intergenerational poverty. I am more than just a content teacher. I’m the last stop for these students before they leave school and a lifelong coach for them in their American journey.” He created the Inspiring Teens program to help students develop five essential life skills: mindset and emotional mastery, setting clear goals and developing a vision for the future, interpersonal communication, leadership, and financial management. Projects are integrated into every skill. For example, students create vision boards, identify an issue they care about and take steps to address that issue within their own communities, and open a checking and savings account to begin building a financial portfolio. The program, which has grown every year, is held in the mornings before school starts and has a nearly 100 percent college matriculation rate. Susso recently started a scholarship fund to lower the financial barrier to college for these students. “They find a lot of value in what they are learning because they can apply those skills right away and experience the impact on their lives. I teach them that their obstacles do not define their future.” 

In 2016, Susso’s partnership with the Center for Urban Pedagogy was recognized by the Obama White House for its student-led social justice initiatives—realized in partnership with local organizations—such as making an animated video series on teenage pregnancy and women’s health, holding town halls, and designing and distributing educational pamphlets on issues including food stamps, minimum wage, and immigration policy. Susso has been the “Most Admired and Inspirational Teacher” in his school for three consecutive years. He was also a 2017 Top 50 finalist for the Global Teacher Prize awarded by the Varkey Foundation, which commits him to travel to Dubai once a year for three years to help develop educational products for developing countries. As New York State’s Teacher of the Year, Susso will have more travel, teaching, and professional development obligations, but those duties are far from a burden. “What I want for these kids is what I wanted for my sister. Every day I get to wake up and provide exactly that. I can see that I am making a difference. There isn’t anything more fulfilling.”
 

Post Date: 02-13-2019