About Me
Professional History
After attending Southern Connecticut State University's secondary English certification program as an undergraduate, I sought a teaching position -- to no avail. So I wrote ad copy for a local newspaper chain for a year. That experience lead to a job at science/technical/medical (STM) publishing company, International Scientific Communications, working as a proofreader and copyeditor. In time, I took over as Managing Editor of American Laboratory News and the Journal of Capillary Electrophoresis (JCE).
Through my association with JCE's Editor, Norberto Guzman of Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research & Development, I was recruited by Manhattan STM publisher, Marcel Dekker. (In 2004, Dekker was sold to Taylor & Francis Group.) I worked there for four years as an acquisitions editor, traveling extensively throughout the United States to develop book titles and recruit editors for multi-authored technical reference titles.
While watching a Red Sox game one night in May of 2000, I saw a recruitment ad lamenting the teacher shortage of the time. I accepted a high school English teaching position at Stratford High School three months later.
My goal is to bring my professional knowledge of technology, publishing, and writing to a new generation of language arts learners. In addition to my teaching responsibilities, I am currently working on my graduate thesis at Southern.
Some Thoughts on Methodology
"Children learn more from what you are than what you teach."
-W.E.B. Dubois, 1897
I remember as an undergraduate working towards my teaching certification I had to write an essay for Methods class arguing that teaching was either an art or a science. I couldn't argue that it was neither, or a little bit of both -- just art or science. Having never taught, I could speak on no authority. My first instinct told me that 'art' was a good answer because teachers should be dynamic and creative. They should be able to improvise and reach people on an emotional level. Having struggled with lesson planning -- especially composing objectives -- I could see that there was a sort of alchemy involved that worked against the formulas available to teachers. Classroom management, too, must be an art, because there seemed to be no single formula that worked for any two people.
On the other hand, everything in the literature seemed to point to science. Many brilliant educators -- people like Madeline Hunter and Howard Gardner -- spent countless hours observing classrooms and teaching while developing elegant theories. It seemed logical that if students were going to be assessed scientifically on things like vocabulary, grammar, and composition, they should also be prepared scientifically. There was talk about the 'chemistry' of classes. There were theorems and axioms, instruments and taxonomies. Even the name of the course for which I was writing the essay, Methods, sounded clinical.
Ultimately, I argued for science. Whether I believed it or not, it was simply easier to argue. Even if I didn't fully understand them, there were 'proven' methods that I could point to as evidence. Taut, empirical stuff. What was there for art? It all seemed too wishy-washy, like it had no substance. Plus, what do you do about the curriculum with all of its standards and benchmarks? Most of all, what do you do about the bosses -- the administrators and chairpersons, the boards of education and the taxpayers -- who expect results and who, by right, could pop in and observe my classes at any time? It was clearly safer to stick with science, not just in my essay but also in my classroom.
Although logic dictated that a scientific, methodical approach seemed easier and safer, I was drowning. Students moaned and grumbled from the Anticipatory Set right through Closure. Discipline was a constant battle. My classes were mostly joyless affairs where nobody learned much of anything. Out of sheer resignation, I began to relax a little. A few days I even showed up with no formal lesson plan at all -- just a poem or a song that I liked. For no reason, I'd stand on a chair or take off my shoes and sit cross-legged on my desk. By the time spring rolled around that first year, I'd take my classes outside and we'd sit in the shade telling stories about the funny things that just happen.
Then students started showing up at odd times -- before and after school, during classes that weren't theirs. They'd ask for poems and short stories, or they'd give me some that they'd written. They'd ask me about the music I played in class. They'd talk to me about the books we had read, about other students, other teachers. They'd ask me what movies they should see, about what college they should go to and what they should say to their parents. They wanted me to interpret their dreams.
Best Practices
Being a curious professional, I wanted to know why the Madeline Hunter model of lesson planning wasn't working for me, so I did some research. It turns out that what Hunter did was to identify teachers who were successful according to certain criteria and then observe them to see what they had in common. She'd look at the practices of the best teachers to try to arrive at some formula for success. The idea was that if you could capture lightning in a bottle, you'd be able to impart it to teachers who weren't necessarily successful according to those same criteria and they'd somehow become successful. Hunter never claimed that every successful teacher used her methods or that a teacher could not be successful if he did not use her methods. In fact, she said the contrary -- reinforcing again and again that rarely would any teacher go through each one of the steps or even follow any kind of order. (1)
Still, somehow the great mythology of formal lesson planning known as Direct Instruction was foisted on teachers decades ago. And even though every school I know of claims to advocate some new and improved format (even going so far as to mislabel it Indirect Instruction, which is something else), it's just a repackaged prescription that has to be followed to the letter. Why is this? How did it come to pass? Because it's easy and safe to be scientific about education. Because there's a general sense on the part of administrators and other decision-makers that most teachers can't teach. Whether they can or not, I don't know. What I do know is that following a prescribed lesson plan may make incompetent teachers more competent, but it can also make competent teachers less competent. Sadly, the system is so entrenched that teachers who work outside of the prescribed methodology must operate below the radar. They must be extraordinarily talented to get away with it and make it work.
A Philosophy of English Teaching
The fact that there is an entrenched, prescribed methodology of teaching is a good thing, because it gives English teachers something to work against in collaboration with their classes. High school students are generally opposed to rules and regulations, and they want to learn for teachers who are like-minded. Expected outcomes and learning objectives are ok as general guidelines, but lesson planning for the English classroom should be more about building momentum -- setting a certain trajectory. Rather than imposing one objective on an entire class, the English teacher should encourage students to reflect on what they took away from a lesson individually. Unit and curriculum planning is useful as a roadmap, but ultra-linear teaching is just that: flatlined. Teachers should teach what they're passionate about. When they can't, they should be passionate about what they teach.
The study of English may have at one time been about something that it's not necessarily about anymore, and most people (including many English teachers) don't get it. The trend in language arts over the past four or five decades has been towards cultural studies and reader response and away from formalism. As such, the emphasis is more on critical thinking, interpersonal skills, and individual identity. Writing is viewed more as a learning activity than as an assessment, and literature is seen as a tool of constructive acculturation and self-discovery rather than a problem to be solved. I'm suspicious of anyone's ability to teach another to read or to write in the traditional sense. But I am confident in my own and others' ability to learn. I see my job as organizing and maintaining a learning system, asking good questions, and encouraging others to do the same.
The natural inclination of young people is to be active and social. To stifle sound and movement is to crush the spirit and indoctrinate the soul. To suggest answers or demand absolute order is to anesthetize the intellect and deaden the senses. The English teacher should ask questions she can't answer. He should disrupt, confound and confuse. The answers are not as important as the questions, and because we are all human, we carry the essential questions of humanity within us. I encourage my students to listen to these questions and give them form. In most cases, the answers are in the asking.
Still, there's never any escaping the requirements of the job. Teachers are expected to provide an environment that is safe from ridicule and physical harm. Teachers should be experts in their subjects and in their students. Teachers should think hard about what they're going to do and reflect hard on what they've done. They should model responsible behavior.
Bob Dylan's grandmother once instructed him, "Be kind because everyone you'll ever meet is fighting a hard battle." (2) That's a lesson I take to heart in approaching my students, and it's one I teach. School should be fun because learning is. It should be hard because learning takes work, but it shouldn't be another battle.
1 [www.humboldt.edu/~tha1/hunter-eei.html] Madeline Hunter did not create a seven step lesson plan model. She suggested various elements that might be considered in planning for effective instruction. In practice, these elements were compiled by others as the "Seven Step Lesson Plan, "taught through teacher inservice, and used as a check list of items that must be contained in each lesson.
This application is contrary to Dr. Hunter's intent and its misuse is largely responsible for objections to "direct instruction" and to Madeline Hunter's system of clinical supervision. Used as Dr. Hunter intended, the steps make a useful structure for development of many lesson plans...including non-behavioral ones. Not all elements belong in every lesson although they will occur in a typical unit plan composed of several lessons.
[Those who have an evaluator who uses the elements as a check list and records a fault for each element missing from a lesson are referred to Patricia Wolfe, "What the 'Seven-Step Lesson Plan' Isn't," Educational Leadership, pp. 70-71, Feb., 1987.]
2 (Bob Dylan, Chronicles p 20.)