By Giuseppe Palmer and Miles Eller, staff writers
Spending 10 summers in a row working at a camp for kids with cancer, college & career teacher Mr. Mishali fell in love with making connections and building relationships with kids, sparking his interest in making a career out of teaching.
From the age of 16 to the age of 26, Mr. Mishali spent his time at Sunrise Day Camp in Long Island, New York working with the campers, talking to them, and playing games with them.
Mr. Mishali continued to go back to Sunrise each summer because he loved the memorable experience. He said, “It was truly incredible. Sunrise is a place where the world gets put on pause somehow and you exist in a place where highs are higher and lows are lower; you really feel much more there. Camp was staffed by not just good people, but truly great people.”
During Mr. Mishali’s 10 years of working at the camp, he also went to Adelphi University in Long Island. After graduating, he went on to get his Master’s degree in the Bay Area at UC Berkeley. Even while he was getting his Master’s, he still returned to Sunrise to continue working there during the summer.
After Mr. Mishali graduated from UC Berkeley, he was offered a position as a middle school science teacher in Palo Alto. He taught middle and high school science classes in Palo Alto for 7 years, but said, “[Science] didn’t give space to connect with kids due to the fast paced content and subject matter.” Instead, he prefers a class where he and his students can spend more time going in depth on the work.
Mr. Mishali then realized that College and Career would be the perfect class in which to connect with his students. He saw that in College and Career, he would be able to discuss student’s individual personalities and learn about their goals and aspirations which he saw as a perfect way to connect with them on a more personal level and the desire to teach the class is what led him to Galileo, where there was an opening for a College and Career teacher.
Mr. Mishali wants to create a reputation of having a classroom environment that is “safe, supportive, and fun.” To his students, he says, “Let’s learn about life together.”
