Starting the 2024-2025 school year, juniors and seniors were greeted by a surprising, but familiar face, in room 517. Baruch’s library room had a not-so-new teacher: Zachariah Davis. Classes like AP Literature and English 11 were taught by Rita Ross. However, Davis willingly accepted to take her position while she’s temporarily gone. Since then, he has been teaching the juniors and seniors in these classes for the year.
Davis, 35 years old, was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. He moved to New York in 2020 during the peak of the pandemic. A nice day for him would include him writing, reading, riding his bicycle and going outside for fresh air and playing basketball when the weather is nice. Being in such diverse places throughout his life, he was exposed to many different cultures and cuisines.
“I cook a lot and I live in a very diverse neighborhood, so I really love learning how to cook different types of cuisines,” he said. “I live in a heavily Indian and Bangladeshi neighborhood so a lot of the markets there have really good ingredients, groceries, and produce.”
Before coming to Baruch, Davis had revealed something interesting about what he used to do before becoming an English teacher: he in fact used to work in TV.
“I used to work for a literacy agency that represents writers for TV and film. I worked for the agents office that represented the Duffer brothers,” he said. His job would usually be taking notes on episodes, making cuts and working in advertisements for shows like “American Horror Story,” “Better Things,” “Pose,” and more.
Before joining Baruch, Davis saw things in Baruch that complimented his likes as a person. “I kinda had three criterias of a school that I was looking for, one was closer to home but Baruch kinda excelled in the other two categories that I was looking for in school which was diversity and rigor,” he said. Since he grew up with different cultures around him, he wanted that to be reflected in the school he teaches. He also liked how Baruch had high academic standards and had students hold up to those standards.
Being an English teacher, Davis wants to be able to guide students in his own unique way. “I don’t feel like when I was in high school, anybody really showed me how to use research databases and how to research academic journals for research papers because I think a lot of the research papers I wrote in high school were very straightforward, analytical book report style.” said Davis.
For his students, he wanted them to have the opportunity to do research and actually be able to look up things that they are interested in and have freedom within their writings. “I like seeing your guys’ ideas,” said Davis.
Davis’s past job helped prepare him with his current job now at Baruch. “A lot of it is you’re reading a lot and you’re providing notes, getting a lot of scripts that you have to break down for a lot of people and because there is so much information that is happening and being given, people in the shows have to stay on top of updates and be very organized. And things need to be quick and legible. Same thing for school, I kind of have to do that for the students as well,” he said.
Working takes up most of Davis’ time. “Well, I feel like I’m constantly thinking about my job,” he said. As a teacher, Davis is tasked with thinking of and giving assignments based on students’ skills and ideas. He is constantly thinking of ideas on how he can improve these assignments for students and himself, all while ensuring that everyone is able to work at a consistent pace.
Like students now, Davis was once a teenager and was in the position of the students he teaches now. During his most formative years, his mother contributed to the work ethic he has now.
“I personally never got senioritis because I was never allowed to have it,” he said. When growing up, it was expected of him to get good grades and do what he was supposed to in school. His mom was often involved in his school when he was younger so he had no freedom to get away with things. He grew up seeing how hard his mom worked and he thought it was only right and respectful to do his part as well in school like she did everyday.
When he was younger, his favorite subject was in fact not English, feeling as if it was too tedious. However, as he got older, he had new teachers that made class enjoyable to him which is when his love for the class began. He was able to be silly and actually engage with texts that he didn’t think were possible in English before. He tried to make his own students feel that way about English class like he did when he got older.
