Janine Hamilton

"I returned to Putney 35 years after my graduation and about 25 years into my teaching career largely so that my daughter could study here. I couldn't think of a better placement for her in terms of the depth and breadth of experience available. Being a dorm head caused me to reengage with my own memories of being a student here, like of nights staying up very late in the dorm with friends, laughing; sitting in a friend's room talking while learning to put our hair in cornrows; and the near daily, crushing games of Buck Buck on the East Lawn.

Being at Putney is the sort of experience a person never wants to let go of. I am so glad to be back, where students want to do rather than just be taught. Even in Algebra, they are happy to discover the rules and the methods for themselves. I find that when my Algebra students take on the discovery process, they enjoy themselves and, more importantly, remember the discovery.

"I teach in three disciplines, one of them very disparate from the other two. Still, there is an ultimate question that I pose to students in Algebra, Video, and Drama. 'Does it work?' If they've really found their own way, if I haven't gotten in the way of their own process of doing and discovery, they are usually able to critique their own work with real insight."

B.A. Film Studies, Hunter College.