Q Why did you decide to be a teacher?
A I could not “not be” at teacher. I was created to teach. In my more than 35 years in teaching, I have taught elementary school students, ESL students, adult learners in industry, students in community college, in high school and in the university.
Q How did you come up with the Shakespeare program and why?
A I created the Shakespeare courses at Padua to empower the students. The students run the program and I facilitate. I fashioned the courses after the 4-H model of "youth teaching youth." In fact, I wrote my master's paper about this theory. When the government of the Soviet Union fell, the newly-formed countries of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan invited the UofD’s 4-H extension office to bring the philosophy of "youth teaching youth" to the emerging nations. Empowering youth works!
Q Describe the Shakespeare course
A At one class meeting, there are three sections: Shakespeare I, Shakespeare II and Shakespeare Leadership. The course is also an exchange course with Salesianum, which adds boys to Padua's all-female environment. The students study and perform a variety of Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets. They participate in the state’s Poetry Outloud competition, held at the Smyrna Opera House each February. They also participate in the English Speaking Union Competition and Shakespeare festival competition – which have joined this year and will take place on Sunday, Feb. 28 at the “Sunday with Shakespeare” event at the University of Delaware’s Thompson Theatre.
The Shakespeare students also facilitate workshops for city elementary school students. We invite fourth graders to our classroom and our teens get the little children from St. Peter's Cathedral, St. Paul's, St. Anthony's and St. Edumund's up and performing Shakespeare. This year our students have also facilitated mini-workshops for seventh-grade students at Christ the Teacher and St. John the Beloved. This outreach portion of the course reinforces Padua’s mission of serving the community. In the past decade, our students have also volunteered by offering a weeklong workshop at the 4-H Newark Summer Camp at the University of Delaware.
Q What is your single biggest day-to-day challenge?
A To remain a facilitator and allow the student Shakespeare Leader to oversee the daily assignments; to remember that this course is about collaboration, not about teacher-centered learning.
