Juzenia Tirado-Carrion

Early Childhood General Education '22

My studies at Bank Street helped to strengthen my capacity to nourish the learning of both the individual and the community.

Bronx native Juzenia Tirado-Carrion worked full time while earning certification and a Master’s of Science in Education as part of Bank Street’s Early Childhood Urban Education Initiative, a Bronx-based program designed to support educators serving young children in New York City’s historically underserved neighborhoods. As a student speaker at the Graduate School’s commencement ceremony in 2022, Tirado-Carrion shared how her experience in the program offered her the opportunity to deepen her understanding of child development as it relates to early learning

Juzenia is currently the preschool director at A House on Beekman in the South Bronx. She works to provide the kind of authentic growth that requires diverse and nurturing opportunities for ongoing social, emotional, and cognitive development.

She said,  “As an educator in the Mott Haven community, the poorest neighborhood in the Bronx, I witness the injustice in education on a day-to-day basis. Children in other parts of the city have access to a range of materials and resources, meanwhile some of the schools in the Bronx barely have crayons. My studies at Bank Street helped to strengthen my capacity to nourish the learning of both the individual and the community.” 

Here is Juzenia’s speech from the 2022 commencement ceremony, which was held at Riverside Church.