Smart teaching can change the world.
Though recorded in New York City, the Teaching Species is heard around the world, its impact and outreach increasing with every episode. We draw on science, philosophy and history, while mining real voices from the field, to address some of education's biggest questions. ,
.Please write to us at teachingspecies@gmail.com for questions and queries.
Hareem Atif Khan started teaching in 1998. She is a Fulbright Scholar, a published curriculum author and was the Commencement Speaker for her graduating class at Teachers College, Columbia University. She served on the faculty of the Literacy Specialist Masters Program at Teachers College for 8 years, overseeing fieldwork across NYC public schools and supervising countless Masters Action Research Projects, ranging in themes as diverse as Mindfulness through Read-aloud to Increasing Sentence-Complexity with Middle School Writers. Action Research continues to be the lens through which she approaches PD, helping teachers plan, observe and reflect on their own direct impact in the classroom.
Hareem has also worked as a Staff Developer through Teachers College–a role that took her across the US, and to locations as diverse as Saudi Arabia and China. For many years, she provided Professional Development at NYC’s top-scoring public schools (PS 158, PS 267) and at 3 of its 5 Gifted and Talented Schools (PS 11, PS 77 and Nest+M). She also Staff-Developed in several tri-state districts including Scarsdale, Greenwich, Rye, Ridgefield, Katonah and Fairfield. As a consultant, she has worked with Queen Rania’s Teacher Academy in Jordan, organized PD for IB faculty in the Pacific-Asia Region in Tokyo and Barcelona, and served on a USAID-funded team to rehaul the national B.Ed curriculum in Pakistan.
But her first love has always been the classroom. Hareem currently teaches History to middle schoolers at The Dalton School in NYC, and spends her weekends and evenings learning the art and craft of podcasting. She founded The Teaching Species in 2025.
Gita Varadarajan is a children's author, writing teacher, and a frequent panelist at children’s book ceremonies and literature festivals. Born and raised in India, Gita has worked with children all over the world, and now teaches fourth graders in Princeton, New Jersey. She has a Masters in Literacy from Teachers College, Columbia University. Save Me a Seat, written with Sarah Weeks, was her first novel. It was followed by two highly acclaimed picture books: My Bindi and My Sari.
Gita makes author visits to schools across the United States, where she encourages children (and their teachers) to trust their own writing voices.