Introducing Ms. Kashyap
Ms. Kashyap, one of the newest members of the Grace community, is the Dean of the Class of 2021 and teaches Literature of the Americas. I recently sat down with her to discuss how she came to Grace as well as her thoughts as a new administrator and member of our community.
Both of Ms. Kashyap’s parents are from India, but she was born and raised in Ridgewood, New Jersey. Because of the way that these identities intersected when she was growing up, Ms. Kashyap says that her “sense of home is a bit straddled.” More challenging as a kid, the duality of her identity became easier as she allowed herself to “form a relationship with India.” In college at Middlebury in Vermont, Ms. Kashyap designed an independant study to travel through India for a month. This work inspired her to found a nonprofit called The Modern Story, focused on improving prospects for Indian public school students by empowering them to think about their “identities and senses of self.” Ultimately, the goal of the program was to equip their students with technological and academic skills that would make them eligible for better jobs than they might not normally be able to apply for.
While continuing to develop this program, Ms. Kashyap worked in a few schools in the Bay Area in California as well as Cambridge, Massachusetts, teaching high school level literature. She moved back to New Jersey into Montclair this past year with her husband, Remy, and one-year-old daughter and makes the commute every day to get to Grace. Due to her busy schedule, The Modern Story has been put on a temporary “hiatus,” but Ms. Kashyap hopes to resume it with the possibility of branches in the United States in mind. Her free time, although limited by her commute from Grace to Montclair, is spent hiking, biking, and generally spending time with friends and family.
The position as dean is new for Ms. Kashyap, but she says that a shift in perspective of how a school functions and runs is exciting for her. Ms. Kashyap says that she has found “really good role models” in the other deans in the High School Division as she gets used to this new role. Her goals for the class of 2021 include getting to know each student individually and encouraging a “socially conscious” class. Ms. Kashyap says that the former has been one of the most difficult parts of her job so far, as most of her first interactions with students are disciplinary in nature, and make it difficult to form relationships with those students. In regards to forming a socially conscious class, Ms. Kashyap has already begun such efforts by devoting a class meeting to current events surrounding Colin Kaepernick’s protest during the national anthem at an NFL game. Ms. Kashyap played several clips including comments from President Trump as well as President Obama, presenting different perspectives on the controversy. According to Ms. Kashyap, it is important to be immersed in life at Grace, but it is also important to “keep our gaze outward.”
As a new member of our community, Ms. Kashyap has a unique perspective of comparison to the other schools that she has worked in. Ms. Kashyap says that Grace has the “most innovative structure” in terms of curriculum and is on “the cutting edge of 21st century education.” Ms. Kashyap added that Grace has “the most racially diverse faculty” that she has ever been a part of. In her final comment, Ms. Kashyap stated that at Grace, there is “no stereotypical student.” According to her, there are “different ways to be here,” both socially and academically, and the fact that there is not one right way to be a student here creates a very unique environment.