Ms. Tinisha Hood is a passionate and experienced special education teacher who has been working with students since 2012. She is currently working for New Brunswick Public Schools, where she strives to create a learning environment that is centered around children, social justice, and restorative practices. Her goal is to ensure that all students feel safe, validated, seen, and heard.
TAE Educator Award
Teaching Against Erasure (TAE), in partnership with the Department of Urban Education, presents the TAE Educator Award. This recognition honors New Jersey teachers who are dedicated to social justice and inclusivity and champion pedagogical methods that support safe learning environments for all students. These educators make a difference in the lives of their students, their school, and their community by drawing upon innovative approaches from disciplines like Black, Latinx, LGBTQIA+ and Disability Studies.
We proudly celebrate our 2023 recipients.
Ms. LaShaunn Mishoe was raised in Newark, New Jersey, and matriculated through schools in the Archdiocese of Newark. Upon graduating from Saint Vincent Academy, she was on a Pre-Business track at Rutgers New Brunswick. Anxious to begin her career, she transferred to a business school and earned an Associate’s Degree in Business Administration. But, after working for a year in “Corporate America,” she realized that wasn’t her calling and returned to school to pursue a teaching degree. She eventually graduated from Kean University earning a BA in English with a Writing concentration, as well as a Minor in Management Science. In 2007, Ms. Mishoe began her teaching career in the East Orange School District. Since then, she has shared her love of reading and writing with students in grades five through nine at charter and public schools in Newark and Jersey City. Outside of the classroom, she is always willing to lend a helping hand by serving on school committees and leading extra-curricular activities such as Student Government, the Chess Club, and After School Enrichment. Ms. Mishoe is currently teaching 8th Grade ELA at Union Avenue Middle School in Irvington.
Dr. Jazmin Puicon is a Teacher of Social Studies at Bard High School Early College in Newark, NJ. She is an award-winning historian, receiving recognition from the New Jersey Department of Education, the New Jersey Studies Academic Alliance and the NAACP for her work in Newark. She is also the proud daughter of immigrants.
Haitian, born and raised in Moscow, Dr. Rosie Jayde Uyola emigrated to the U.S. in 1991 and attended Rutgers University at age 16, embodying Bard’s belief that many young people are ready and eager to do serious college work during high school. In addition to having 20 years of high school teaching experience, Rosie simultaneously taught undergraduate students at Rutgers University and graduate students at Fordham University over the past decade. They hold a B.A. in Economics, M.Ed. in Educational Technology (concentration: Computer Science), M.A. in American Studies, and a Ph.D. in American Studies. Rosie’s publications include “Memory and the Long Civil Rights Movement,” in The Seedtime, the Work, and the Harvest: New Perspectives on the Black Freedom Struggle in America (University of Florida Press, 2018), “The Digital City: Memory, History, and Public Commemoration,” Ácoma International Journal of North-American Studies, Italia (2015), “Home Sweet Home – Race, Housing, and the Foreclosure Crisis,” in The War on Poverty: A Retrospective (Lexington Books, 2014), “Race, Empire, and the Rise of the Mortgage Industrial Complex,” The Newark Experience Digital Archive (Rutgers University Libraries, 2013), and “Women in the Black Freedom Movement,” School Series Production of Harriet Tubman, New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC, 2008). Rosie’s commitment to teaching against erasure extends beyond the classroom. They are the president of the New York Metro chapter of the American Studies Association (NYMASA) and an NEH fellow at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem. Dr. Uyola’s expertise and research interests include memory, commemoration, public art, and oral history. They find joy in filmmaking, cooking, travel, theatre, and playing music.
https://www.nymasa.com
https://www.rosieuyola.com