Joan Barickman started full-time teaching more than thirty years ago. But even before that, in high school and college, she worked as a tutor and part-time teacher. For all those years, she’s committed herself to learning how to help those students who are "at risk"—those who don’t achieve excellence in school—a group which includes a startling 75 percent of our school population. She has taught every grade, kindergarten through twelfth. She has taught music, drama, sciences, social studies, and English, and has worked in private prep schools, alternative schools, and comprehensive high schools. For the last 15 years, she’s taught in the Bedford, New York, public schools. Joan has taught hundreds of other teachers and graduate students and has written extensively about education. She was a founder of the New York State Alternative education Association and won the first New York State Alternative Educator of the Year Award. In addition, she has received fellowships from sources such as the Danforth Foundation and grants from CETA, the New York Youth-at-Risk/Community Partnerships Program, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and a variety of other federal, state, corporate, and private sources.