Overview

Our Team  

Advisory Panel

National Ambassadors

Bloggers

 

Overview 

Beyond Teaching is a fast-growing online community of teachers seeking extra work as tutors and caregivers.  We connect teachers with parents who are looking for skilled and knowledgeable individuals to work with their children. Beyond Teaching believes that providing children with ongoing learning experiences is essential.  We know that parents often struggle to find top quality childcare and tutors. We also know that teachers – trained professionals – have the unique qualities and skills that can contribute to a child’s education after school. Parents’ needs for these services often coincide with teachers’ availability to provide them after school, on weekends and during school vacations.

 

At Beyond Teaching, we know teachers perform optimally with small groups of children or one-on-one. Outside the busy classroom with fewer disruptions and a teacher's undivided attention, great things happen...learning is revolutionized!  This translates directly to childcare and tutoring, particularly with small children who require careful attention. Teachers have the passion and professional skills to motivate and engage children of all ages in varied activities, and they affect behavior in a positive way!  Read more.

 

Our Team

Dimity Kirwan, Founder & CEO

Dimity Kirwan is the founder of Beyond Teaching.  She is a New York City public school educator who has worked in several schools, including P.S. 325, Democracy Prep Charter School as a summer school teacher and mentor to Teach for America corps members, and an 8^th grade math teacher at Washington Heights Expeditionary Learning School (WHEELS), where she currently teaches. 

Dimity is passionate about closing the achievement gap and empowering teachers to use their skills and knowledge both in and outside of the classroom.  Most recently, she is an entrepreneur who believes that good teaching can happen anywhere – not just in the classroom – and is eager to connect parents with teachers in their local area. 

Dimity grew up in Wilton, Connecticut and attended Tulane University in New Orleans, LA.  Throughout college, she spent time abroad volunteering in schools in Peru and Costa Rica, studying abroad in Prague, and researching HIV/AIDS for UNICEF in Kenya.  She has lived in New York City for four years where she completed her Masters of Teaching in Childhood Education 1 - 6 at Pace University.

 

 

David M. Smiles, CPA  Chief Financial Advisor

David Smiles joined Beyond Teaching as a managing member in 2011 and has worked closely with its Founder, Dimity Kirwan to establish a strong foothold within the New York and Connecticut area.  David has taught accounting as both a private instructor and teaching assistant at the University of Southern California.  Prior to joining Beyond Teaching, David served as a managing member of Smiles Ventures, LLC, which manages several portfolio companies operating within the retail, apparel, and consumer product industries.  David also worked in the Financial Services Offices of Ernst & Young, LLP, focusing on hedge funds and alternative investments and spent four years as the Branch Development Manager for Guaranteed Home Mortgage Company, Inc., where he played a vital role in the company’s acknowledgment as one of the Fastest Growing Private Companies in 2005 by Inc. Magazine.  

David received his Bachelor of Science degree in Economics from Vanderbilt University and his Master of Accounting degree from the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California.  David is a Certified Public Accountant.Follow @davidmsmiles

Mary Elizabeth Clune is a reading specialist who works with struggling readers grades Kindergarten through 12 to develop their literacy skills.  She was a 2008 Teach for America Corps member and believes strongly in the power of literacy to help close the achievement gap.

Mary Elizabeth grew up in Wilton, Connecticut and attended Trinity College.  Throughout college, she spent time volunteering abroad with Operation Smile in Tegucigalpa, Honduras and Hanoi, Vietnam teaching about nutrition and burn care in local hospitals and orphanages.

 

While abroad with Operation Smile, she also worked with the team’s speech pathologist and developed an interest in the link between speech/language difficulties, and reading difficulties.  She recently graduated from the Harvard Graduate School of Education with her Masters in Language and Literacy and plans to continue to study speech/language and reading difficulties. 

 

 

 

 

 

Advisory Panel 

Geri Smiles, Senior Advisor 

Geri is a veteran preschool educator.  She currently serves as the Preschool Director at Temple Israel’s Early Childhood Education Center in Westport, CT.  Prior to joining Temple Israel’s Early Childhood Education Program, Geri opened the Conservative Synagogue Preschool in September 2000 and served as its director for nine years.  Leading up to this, she worked as head teacher in a Head Start program, a Senior Camp Administrator during summers, and a Curriculum Coordinator for over fifteen years in New York.  

 

 

Rickie Yudin, Advisory Board Member

Originally from New Jersey, Rickie move to Nashville, Tenessee in 2001 to attend Vanderbilt University where he earned a Bachleor of Arts degree in Economics and History with a minor in Spanish.  During his time at Vanderbilt, he began his career in education when he taught 9th grade math at the Nashville Bridge summer school.  After graduating in 2005, Rickie moved to Las Vegas, Nevada as a Teach for America Corps Member.  Over the course of his four years in Las Vegas, he taught first grade, second grade, and a third and fourth grade reading intervention class.  He was also able to earn his Master of Education degree in Elementary Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Most recently, Rickie has been the assistant principal of 5th and 6th grade at KIPP Austin College Prep while also teaching 5th grade writing and 6th grade science.  Some of Rickie's leadership experiences include: Project Leader for Wiki-Teacher.com, a website for teachers to share their collective intelligence through their resources, insights, and practices; Member of the New Teacher Induction Program Cadre; and Co-founder of EdTogether.org, a community-based education interest group serving as an advocate for students in the Las Vegas Valley.

 

 

National Ambassadors 

Jordan Nosanchuk, Detroit Regional Ambassador

Jordan is currently completing her degree in Elementary Education at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan.

After completing her associates in Merchandising Marketing at Los Angeles' Fashion Institute, Jordan moved home to the Metro Detroit area where she began working for Ralph Lauren.  In her spare time, Jordan began volunteering as a teacher's assistant in the Early Childhood Center at the world-renowned private school, Cranbrook.  She always had a love for children, but it was in the classroom where Jordan discovered her passion for teaching and gave up her fashion career to pursue a more rewarding field in education. 

Jordan has also been working with local organizations such as, CommunityNext, in order to bring enthusiastic, young adults into the city of Detroit who will add socially, professionally, and culturally to the area.  She has joined Beyond Teaching as the first regional ambassador, and is currently spreading the word to local parents and teachers via strategic marketing and team participation in Pitch for Detroit. 

 

 

Bloggers

Emily Gold, Education Blogger

Emily Gold recently completed a Masters of Science in Public Health from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.  She has always been interested in the relationship between education and health.

Emily has taught in many settings, including a summer school program in Harlem where she also coached baseball, and as a tutor to resettled refugees in Atlanta.  In 2006 she spent 9 months in Chiang Mai, Thailand, where she taught refugees from Burma in a variety of subjects including women's empowerment, health, human rights and English.  

 Emily is originally from Bellmore, NY and earned her undergraduate degree at Emory University.  She recently spent 8 months in Ethiopia working with CARE to design programming for Urban Female Youth and with DKT Ethiopia researching Emergency Contraception use.   She is currently living in Ottawa, Canada where she is learning French and plans on continuing her public health career.  

 
Christiana Stevenson, Summer Blogger

Christiana Stevenson teaches secondary English in Indianapolis, IN.  A Teach for America Corps Member, she is passionate about closing the achievement gap and education reform.  Before joining Teach for America, Christiana worked at McKinsey & Company's Get-Set Program where she taught middle school and interned at Mikva Challenge, a non-profit dedicated to developing civic leadership skills to underserved Chicago high school youth. 

Christiana grew up in Wilton, Connecticut and and received a BA in Political Science and English from DePauw Univeristy, where she graduated magna cum laude and Phi Betta Kappa in 2007.  During college, she spent time working at an HIV/AIDS orphanage in Tanzania where she began harnessing a passion for eradicating poverty at home and abroad. Christiana has experience working in the public (Obama for America), private (Eli Lilly & Co), and nonprofit (AmeriCares) sectors.  She is currently completing her masters in teaching at Marian University in Indianapolis, IN.