The following was also submitted to the Norwich Evening Sun.
I taught science at Norwich High School from 1987 to 1994 and then went off to graduate school. A winding professional path brought me to Colgate University and back to the Chenango Valley in 2003. As I prepare to once again leave the Chenango Valley, I want to extend my thanks to some fine educators with whom my students and I have worked. As the list is long, I am sure to miss some important players and I apologize for anyone I have overlooked.
When I left the valley the first time, what I missed most were my fine colleagues at Norwich High School, especially Rich Bernstein, Patti Giltner, Joe Stewart and Jim Wysor. I learned much from them that has proved to be invaluable in the years since. All these years later, I still value their friendship and professional expertise. I use the ways I saw Rich and Dave Paul interact some twenty years ago as the model for what teacher professional development should look like. It has been great to reconnect professionally with Rich as he helped Colgate student teachers consider aspects of teaching too often overlooked.
I’m also thankful to my two former college students, Sarah Miller and Correen (Seacord) Briggs who have made me look good by doing so well as science teachers at Norwich High School.
In leaving Colgate University, the work I will miss the most will be my collaboration with teachers, administrators and students at Sherburne Earlville Middle School. Working together with Principal Jill Lee and English and mathematics teachers allowed me to “teach” what I believe is the best course I’ve taught in my 20 years as an educator. The reality is that it wasn’t me who did most of the teaching. My students were taught more by middle school students and their teachers. Rennie Korver, Linda Leach and Dave Westervelt were especially helpful in opening their classrooms and themselves to my students.
Laurie Doliver also worked with several of my students and it was a special delight to have one of my former high school students as such a fine colleague. (I’ve also been lucky to see some of my other former high school students doing first-rate work as teachers).
I want to pass along my thanks to the middle school students as well. These middle school students were perhaps the best teachers for my college students. It is difficult to describe the breadth and depth of issues related to teaching and learning that middle school students taught my Colgate students but it was impressive indeed. Most of my students came to know and respect at least one child whose school experiences were remarkably different from his or her own.
I am optimistic that all involved – me, my students, the teachers and their students – benefited from the collaboration. My students learned from smart dedicated teachers about what characteristics make a good teacher. They learned important lessons about the many reasons why students do poorly in school and that many of those reasons have little to do with how smart or how nice a kid is.
I am hopeful that the middle school students got something just as valuable. Many got individual attention to help them complete schoolwork. That is nice, but I think some got something far more. There was a respectful relationship between the students of Colgate University and those of Sherburne Earlville Middle School that I think will make both groups more successful as they each move forward in the years to come.
Linda, Rennie, Laurie and Dave were not the only teachers who helped make the program work well. Over the past four years, I have had students work with most of the mathematics department and a few members of the English and science departments Danielle Goedel, Kevin Vibbard, Roseanne Kantor and Harmon Hoff all provided wonderful experiences for my students, as did others too numerous to mention.
With sincere appreciation,
Don Duggan-Haas
