Author Dan Brown was born in and grew up in Like many another 22-year-old college graduate, Brown left the privileged halls of academe behind in June of 2003 not quite certain about what he wanted to do next. He'd made a short film he was proud of, and thought about trying to use it as a springboard to get him a position on the bottom rung in the movie world. But that didn't sound quite right just yet.

His career-teacher mom started encouraging him to think about the classroom, and when he discovered that the New York City schools were in desperate need of teachers, he became intrigued by the idea of accepting a job that no one else seemed to want. And so he signed up to become one of 2,400 other New York City Teaching Fellows, as part of a program set up to help solve the chronic teacher shortage throughout the city.

Readers should probably take it as a hopeful sign that Brown, a once-budding filmmaker, despite his trying year in the , which he has managed to vividly recreate in The Great Expectations School, is now a full-time graduate student at Teachers College of Columbia University, studying for a master's degree in teaching English.

This article appeared in the Jewish Exponent.

http://www.jewishexponent.com/article/13770/

Published Monday, Sep. 10, 2007