Nicky Dawidoff ’81 Honors Long-Time Hopkins Teacher Heidi Dawidoff in The New Yorker

Hopkins alum, Trustee, current parent, and author Nicky Dawidoff ’81 has published a deeply personal new essay in The New Yorker reflecting on the life and legacy of his late mother, Heidi Dawidoff, a beloved English teacher whose influence shaped generations of students at the Day Prospect Hill School (DPH) and later Hopkins School.

Published on May 10, 2026, “How Reading with My Dying Mother Revealed Her Life” chronicles the conversations Nicky shared with his mother during the final years of her life as the two read literature together and revisited memories, family history, and the emotional complexities that shaped both their relationship and her decades-long teaching career.

Nicky, an acclaimed author whose books include The Other Side of Prospect: A Story of Violence, Injustice and the American City and The Catcher Was a Spy, has long maintained close ties to Hopkins. In addition to serving on the Committee of Trustees, he returned to campus in 2022 to speak with students about his reporting on race, inequality, and the criminal justice system in New Haven.

For many in the Hopkins community, the essay should resonate as a portrait of Heidi’s impact as a teacher. She taught for nearly four decades between DPH and Hopkins before retiring in 2000. Known for her intellectual rigor and deep commitment to students, she built a legacy as an educator who cared as deeply about people as she did the written word.

As Nicky writes in the essay, former students described Heidi as a teacher who challenged them to think deeply and recognized potential in students long before they recognized it in themselves. Her courses guided students through works such as Emma, Bleak House, and The Portrait of a Lady, while her handwritten comments in the margins of student papers became a lasting memory for many former students. In one example recalled in the essay, Heidi returned a paper with the note: “I disagree with everything you say, but your argument is perfect.”

Nicky’s essay also explores the remarkable experiences that shaped his mother’s life. Born in Vienna in 1937, Heidi was separated from her family as an infant while escaping Nazi-occupied Austria before eventually reuniting with them in England. Later, as a single mother raising two children in New Haven, she balanced financial hardship with an unwavering dedication to teaching and literature.

Following Heidi’s passing in August 2024, the Hopkins community shared an outpouring of memories celebrating her intellect, originality, and compassion. As her obituary noted, “her thousands of students knew a fully engaged, completely original teacher who helped them to share her impassioned understanding of Shakespeare, Austen, Dickens, Thoreau, Woolf, Wharton, and Baldwin.”

Nicky’s essay offers another powerful window into that legacy and into the enduring impact a great teacher can have on generations of students, colleagues, and family alike.