Teacher Spotlight: Alex Scott, Wolfe Street Academy

One of the new faces at Wolfe Street Academy this fall is a familiar one at Baltimore Curricular Project (BCP): Alex Scott, BCP Tutor, and graduate of Hampstead Hill Academy.

Role at Wolfe Street: Alex primarily works with a small reading group of 1st grade students and provides supplementary math and language instruction to a 3rd grade student in hopes of bringing him back to grade level. They also assist Pre-K and Kindergarten lunch and recess and in a 1st grade classroom.

Path to BCP: Following Hampstead Hill, they graduated from City College and, this past May, from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and Clive Davis Institute. Alex majored in recorded music, maintained a 3.7 GPA, and performed in the 2023 End-of-Semester Showcase. Their passion for music and performing continues as they embrace their passion for education and helping Wolfe Street’s students strive and thrive in the classroom. Read more about Alex here.

What follows are Alex’s reflections on their new role, what it feels like to “come home” to BCP, and their love of music.

The variety within my role adds to how interesting it is! Being able to help students across multiple different grade levels keeps me on my toes. As a former BCP student, I was able to experience Direct Instruction from the student’s perspective, and it’s really cool to see how things work behind-the-scenes now that I’ve stepped into the role of the instructor. It’s rewarding to see the students excited about learning new things, as I was once in their place many years ago.

It’s surreal that I’m now in the position of the instructors I learned from after spending a decade of my life inside a BCP school. Being able to put my own spin on curriculum I’m already familiar with helps not only keep me excited about my work, but it helps to keep the students engaged. Keeping students excited and enthused about learning and growing academically is one of the most important things about the work that I do at Wolfe Street Academy, and it’s easier to cater to the needs of my students while working in a small group.

I’d love to become a music teacher for middle school. I realized my love for the craft at that age, and I’d love to give back to the community that helped shape me into the creative I am today. Most of the technical skills I learned at NYU would best be applied to students within that age range, and I believe it’s more important now than ever before to keep students excited about being creative. 

I never would’ve gotten into songwriting without my BCP teachers implementing the arts into our curriculum. English has always been one of my favorite subjects, and I use what I learned in those classes to help bolster my writing skills creatively and otherwise. Being able to merge my love of writing with a music course for tweens and young teens would be a dream. Outside of teaching, I’d love to continue the freelance work (performing, commissioned songwriting) with my business partner. We’re reaching out to creatives of all sizes in multiple different avenues of media, from musical artists like ourselves, to YouTubers, to filmmakers alike. One of my goals is to support myself financially from my creative work. Follow me @_alexxncl and @yvex_official.

At NYU, I took as many songwriting classes as I could, soaking up knowledge and anecdotes from everyone as I honed in on my craft. I built long-lasting relationships with my professors and peers and launched a joint venture called yvex (stylized in lowercase) with a close friend. As a Black, fem-forward writer-producer duo, we’ve worked with a handful of musical acts and have landed one YouTube placement as of writing. Thanks to my partner and the help I received from a handful of my other peers at NYU, I released my debut album back in June, a project that I’ve been working on for the past few years.