george.gonzalez@hunter.cuny.edu
212-650-3375
1113 West

Dr. Gonzalez was born in Puerto Rico and raised in New York City. His passion for education developed from his own positive early childhood experiences in the public school system in Queens, NY.  Dr. Gonzalez holds a BA in Psychology and Education, and an MS in Bilingual Special Education from Hunter College. He earned a second MS in Psychology and a PhD in Developmental Psychology from Yeshiva University. As a Developmental Psychologist with clinical training, he has worked with Latino families at a community counseling center in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Dr. Gonzalez served for many years as the coordinator of the TTT (Training Tomorrow’s Teachers) and QUEST (Quality Urban Elementary School Teachers) programs. He also received the Ladas Teaching Award for exemplary teaching. Dr. Gonzalez has presented many workshops on a variety of educational topics at local and national conferences, and he has been trained in creating Social Emotional Learning (SEL) classroom environments.

Teaching

Dr. Gonzalez has taught mainstream elementary and special education classes in both the public and parochial school systems, as well as ESL to adults. He was instrumentally involved in several district and state level educational programs: The LEAP Program, City As School Program, and TOC mentoring program for novice teachers. He has taught undergraduate and graduate methodology courses in the Departments of Curriculum Teaching, Educational Foundations, and Special Education, and he has supervised graduate and undergraduate teacher candidates in the field.  Dr. Gonzalez is currently mentoring novice teachers as part of the Teacher Opportunity Corp Program in collaboration with the Hunter College School of Education.

Research

Dr. Gonzalez’s research interests are in supporting and training novice teachers, exploring and implementing effective teaching practices in classrooms, motivating low performing students to succeed academically in the public schools, infusing SEL strategies in classrooms, and developing and maintaining effective communication strategies for students, teachers, administrators and parents.