October Teacher Spotlight: Ms. Delapenha

Each month, GAP will be interviewing one of our amazing faculty members at GA, starting first with our new teachers to the school. This October, our faculty spotlight is on Ms. Delapenha, a new English IX and X teacher in addition to our new Daedalus co-faculty advisor.

What classes/extracurriculars are you teaching this year?

I’ll be teaching English IX and X. I’m also thrilled to be co-leading Daedalus with Mrs. Tamalonis!

What is your favorite part about being a teacher/what drew you to teaching?

It’s really the privilege of being able to share two of the activities I love most–reading and writing–with other people, hopefully approaching the same mind-opening impact that my high school English teachers had in shaping my own thinking and development. 

What aspect of the subject you teach do you love the most? Which unit/topic do you think is your favorite to cover?

Hands down, poetry. I have a natural bias here because I’m a poet, so reading and writing poetry is what I love doing for fun. In the classroom, though, I think poetry uniquely equips students to read other genres more insightfully because its compression requires detailed analysis with such radical intensity and laser-sharp focus. When you train yourself to read with the attentiveness that poetry requires and rewards, it’s usually easier to make observations in other genres (and other subjects, too!).

What did you do before becoming a teacher at GA?

I’ve been tutoring students (mostly high schoolers) online during the pandemic, and before that I was doing my master’s in the UK.

What are you looking forward to most this school year?

Meeting students and reading great literature together…in person!

Do you have any hobbies or pets? What’s your favorite thing to do when you have some free time?

Well, taking the word “pet” very liberally, there is a rather menacing (wild) barracuda in my backyard who I’ve named Rosencrantz. (I’ve lived very near the sea for the past two years.) He’s my pet even though he isn’t quite aware of it. We occasionally have staring contests which he wins without exception, but I’m improving slowly. Apart from that, I love baking (pavlovas, recently), and reading and writing poetry. 

Do you have a favorite song/genre of music or favorite movie/genre of movies?

This is a tough one. Although it may sound quite grouchy, it’s easier for me to explain what I don’t like, which in music is country, metal, or anything with lots of nasal autotune. For movies, I find romantic comedies unimaginative at best and nauseating at worst, and I don’t have the stomach for horror movies. (Context: I walked out of I Am Legend.) On a more positive note, the music I’ve enjoyed recently ranges from Tony Ávila to Nina Simone (always) to BLKBOK. Movie-wise, I know it’s cliché to say that I loved Nomadland and Minari but I really, really did…such understated, brilliant originality in celebrating everyday people doing that extraordinary feat called living through tight, sophisticated storytelling that rewards second and third viewings. 

What’s a fun fact about yourself that not many people know?

For limited periods in the past, I’ve really enjoyed doing flamenco dance and improv comedy, and I’m dazzlingly amateur at both. Once, I performed in an improv show in Manhattan, which was hilarious in the most regrettable sense of the word. 

What was your favorite part of high school when you were a student?

A toss-up between theatre and English classes. Those moments where language leapt off a page in a way that quickened my fragile teenage heart. 

What advice would you give to students?

Fail. I mean it. There can be a real pressure in high school to succeed at all things at all times, which we all know intuitively is impossible but still secretly expect anyway. I am not, of course, talking about being complacent or comfortable with mediocrity when you know you can do better. But be ambitious enough to do something different, to think differently from what your peers expect, even and especially when taking that risk incurs a social or (dare I say it) an academic cost. It’s in that discomfort where innovation happens, and where character is built most beautifully. 

We’re super thrilled to have Ms. Delapenha at GA this year with us; she’s made a wonderful addition to our teaching staff and we’re excited to learn more about and from her as the year progresses! Welcome to GA, Ms. Delapenha! And stay tuned, readers, for next month where we’ll be learning more about our new US History fellow, Ms. Chen!