Newton

Zachary Barr

Zachary Barr first came to Boston in 2005 as a freshman at Brandeis University.  Having worked in numerous camp, tutoring, and Hebrew school settings already, he had known for a while that he wanted to teach.  After completing the education program and graduating with his History 5-8 and 8-12 license, he worked for four years as an assistant, and later co-teacher, at the Rashi School, a Jewish day school in Dedham.  While there, he attended Boston College part time to gain a masters degree in education, focusing on curriculum and instruction.  From there, he was lucky enough to be hired by the Newton Public Schools.  Now in his sixth year at the district, he has been teaching 8th grade US history and civics at Day Middle School and loving the experience.  It really feels like the teaching he was born to do.

Besides his work in the classroom, Zachary also is passionate about teacher training and mentoring.  He hosted a student teacher in his third year at Day, which made Zachary excited to take on more mentoring leadership opportunities at his own school.  After pestering Day’s mentoring coach for long enough (Jenna Monahan, from cohort 1), she provided Zachary with the opportunity this past year to mentor a new teacher and take Carol’s Mentoring in Action course.  It was such a positive experience that he is now taking the 20/20 Vision leadership course to expand his knowledge base and mentoring abilities.  He’s hoping to get more involved in mentoring leadership, especially trying to support long term subs in their growth as educators.