After the completion of the 2024-2025 school year, Piscataway High School English teacher Mrs. Yeselson will grade her final essay and retire from teaching. Yeselson spent 39 years teaching, starting at Rutgers University and ending at Piscataway High School.
Mrs. Yeselson began teaching in Piscataway in January of 2011. She began her teaching career when she was 25 and will be ending it at 65. We asked her about how she felt about teaching as a whole:
“It was absolutely the most exciting and terrifying thing I have ever done in my life.” Mrs. Yeselson said. “I do have agoraphobia to a limited degree, like a mild agoraphobia but it is also the case that teaching is very interesting, and it never stops being interesting.”
When asked about her career at PHS, Mrs. Yeselson mentioned how she loves the diversity at this school.
“The student body has been incredibly and wonderfully diverse as well as generally very nice, I’m grateful for that. It’s an exciting school to teach at because there’s so much variety of cultural experience. There are so many opportunities for people to express their voices which is what teaching English is all about.”
Mrs. Yeselson has picked up a lot of wisdom over the past 40 years in the education industry. We asked her to share her favorite one.
“Students should believe in themselves more.” Mrs. Yeselson said. “What I fear is that my students tend to be very anxious and don’t have faith in their ability to do things that are difficult. They should believe in themselves more because you can. You can do so much more than you think you can. It’s really okay to not be perfect because that’s where growth happens.”
A rising PHS Junior who had Yeselson for 2 years, Howard Dickson, was interviewed about her retirement. He described the impact she had on him as a student.
“Ms. Yeselson helped me realize that I want to help people in whatever career I choose.” Dickson said. “She pushed me to care, take action, and try to make a difference, no matter the path I take.”
Dickson also touched on his favorite moment with Yeselson.
“My favorite moments were the talks we’d have when I stopped by her room.” Dickson said. “Just real conversations about life, goals, and figuring things out. She’d often share her own personal experiences too, which made the advice feel personal and genuine.”
Ms. Yeselson’s supervisor, English department chair Scott Hood also spoke about how fantastic her teaching abilities are.
“Teaching and working with Ms. Yeselson has been one of the true pleasures of my career. As I have said many times, she has the amazing ability to get students to achieve so much more than they even know they are capable of.” Hood said. “She is a fantastic educator and a good friend, and I have learned so much from her.”
After teaching here for 14 years, we asked Yeselson how she is going to feel when she leaves:
“I can’t even imagine leaving. It’s weird. I’m so upset that I’m not gonna teach my really enjoyable English 10 course again and make changes. I had such a good times and I had all kinds of colleagues and friends here.”
