Questions on School
1. Name a teacher who inspired you in elementary or middle school and talk about how this teacher helped you.
2. Name a teacher in high school or college who had a strong influence on you, positively or negatively, and talk about the effect of the teacher and the course on your life.
3. If you had a chance to relive your high school years, what would you do differently? Academically? Socially?
4. If you could design the perfect high school for you, what would it look like?
5. Was/Is there a special teaching technique that has been most effective for you?
6. If you were the U.S. Secretary of Education, what would you do to make schools more effective in preparing more students for college?
Reed Bye (family friend)
1. Mr. Penny, eighth grade English, opened me to reading literature. Had us read aloud in class and discuss points from the book as a class, as well as write written reports. Reading as a collective class enterprise made the experience of the books livelier and less solitary. I remember reading A Tale of Two Cities this way in particular.
2. I‘m embarrassed that I can’t remember his name, but he too taught English and U.S. lit, and, while very reticent and shy as a teacher, introduced us early to U.S. postmodern poetry and somehow made the world of writing seem very interesting and eccentric without doing anything to glorify or artificially romanticize it.
3. I was not a good student in high school. I couldn’t focus on and stay with the texts in any subject very well. That may seem surprising because I began to read and write quite a lot in my twenties and have continued to do that throughout my life. I think I needed broader personal experience of the world before books and academic information could hold my attention and mean much to me. A more active social life might have helped a bit with
triggering academic interest, but really I just wasn’t intellectually activated in any particular direction enough to get very engaged with school work
4. It would include compulsory work projects—these could be of any nature-- scientific, artistic, mechanical, constructive, scholarly—that students would work on both individually and as part of a group. And it would be good if some of these involved specific off-campus assignments—interviews or other information gathering, viewing and note-taking, listening, etc.
5. Those that promote direct interchange between teacher and students, raising provocative questions grounded in the details of particular texts or issues. In general, teaching methods that excite general inquisitiveness as well as relaying personal passionate interest in a topic or subject.
6. I would want to implement a curriculum balanced between developing fundamental arts of expression-- reading, speaking, writing, singing, dancing (?!)—and the presentation of basic knowledge in particular disciplines oriented toward opening up those disciplines so they appear both open-ended and exciting with real questions and possibilities. That would require the enticement and employment of good, engaged teachers.
Marc Rodriguez (friend)
1. In middle school, my humanities teacher pushed me to do better. The reason being that he mentioned that I was barely passing his class and eventually I turned it around when I realized that I should to better and followed his advice and managed to do better and I had a major improvement.
2. In High School, I think my 10th Grade English was a major influence on me. See, I was not a person who was able to be present my work to people in my class and I was afraid to perform. It seems that afterwards, I wasn't afraid of performing or sharing my ideas and work to others, I felt that everyone is afraid and that you just need to have some charisma.
3. Since I'm still in High School, what I could have done prior to the grade I'm in I would've Probably talked more to people or talked more and not be embarrassed about what others said about me. Academically, probably not given up on some of the assignments back in Freshman year and not have been distracted.
4. I would have a school where the students are actively involved, have students that are willing to learn and won't just sit there and make fun of the quiet/dumb kid. Also a school that was more advanced than other schools, and one that isn't so hard to get into.
5. I think that having a teacher who doesn't go in-depth and at least explains work in a simple way has the best potential. A teacher who pushes you (by being encouraging) has best potential. I have seen this first hand, as I interned at an elementary school, where students have ideas of how teachers teach and how one can act to encourage students to work before having to deal with a higher quality of work in Middle School and High School.
6. Have a system in which schools only raise tuition based on need and also have a system in which there would be percentage increases every year that wouldn't make the price skyrocket.
Reed Morgan (brother – in college)
1. Ms. Murphy, my fifth grade English and History teacher, inspired me to work
harder because of her dynamic teaching style and her interesting assignments.
We had to create books and illustrate them: two fiction books (creative writing),
a biography, a cookbook, and an ad campaign for a favorite book. She showed
one of my books to a friend at the Brooklyn Children’s Museum, and this led to
my involvement with one the exhibitions.
2. Dr. Edith Balbach, who taught a community health course my freshman year and became a mentor to me. With her guidance I applied for a summer internship at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, where I was allowed to develop a program for children in Harlem. She encouraged me to major in public health and to apply for an international travel grant. I was able to work at an orphanage in Kenya and had an amazing experience.
3. I would have taken Spanish instead of or in addition to French in high school. I thought about saying that I would have worked harder, but actually I wouldn’t have wanted to work any harder. I would have liked even more time playing basketball.
4. I think all public elementary, middle, and high schools should have the same standard equipment and resources to create greater fairness. I’m talking about playgrounds, libraries, classroom equipment, music, dance, and theater classes – everything.
5. Hands-on learning experiences like internships have been great for me.
6. If I were the Secretary of Education, I would get rid of a lot of the testing in the lower grades and have kids read more in school, discuss books, and write their own stories.
Linda Morgan (mother)
1. Madame Seide was my French teacher in 7th, 8th, and 9th grade, and she made me love learning the French language and reading French literature. Because of her, I ended up majoring in French in college and spending my junior year in France.
2. Mr. Pierce taught an English course about James Joyce’s Ulysses, which was one of the most entertaining and stimulating classes I ever had in college. He taught us how to appreciate great works of literature.
3. I hope I would try to be more experimental with my ideas and writing and not worry about what others might think.
4. A perfect school would work to discover students’ individual talents early on so
so that they could be developed from a young age.
5. As part of my French classes, reading magazines in French, listening to French music, and going to French restaurants and speaking French all helped me become more fluent.
6. As Secretary of Education I would demand a much bigger budget to give all
the schools standardized resources so that there wouldn’t be the giant inequities
between rich and poor schools.
Devin Morgan(self - in high school)
1. Mrs. Nan O’Shea was my year-long 4th grade teacher, and she is the elementary school teacher I will never forget. She was the most dramatic teacher I ever had with her sweeping gestures and booming voice. She was a great storyteller and really knew how to connect with her students.
2. Ms. De Rothschild taught my 9th grade English class, and she really pushed me and all her other students to try to write consistently well every time. In her class I made graphic novels and wrote poetry and a lot of papers. What made her one of the best teachers I’ve had was her method of making detailed suggestions of how to improve a paper and then giving us a chance to get a better grade by redoing it.
3. For my freshman and sophomore years I would definitely try to get more sleep. I would go out for the soccer team both years so that I could get to know more kids.
4. The perfect high school for me would look more like a college campus with buildings located around a huge green lawn. It would be called Sports Tech (yes I’ve put a lot of thought into this), and it would be dedicated to improving the athletic talents of kids in sports ranging from basketball, soccer, swimming, tennis, football, track and field, baseball, and lacrosse.
5. An effective teaching technique for me is having a chance to revise a paper once the teacher has made corrections. In this way the corrections sink in better.
6. If I were the U.S Secretary of Education, I would have classroom helpers in middle school for all kids, not just for special needs kids. These helpers would spot academic weaknesses with each student and arrange one on one meetings daily to prepare them for highschool.
Part B
For me, and obviously for others, teachers are the focal point of school. Teachers have to feed kids' natural curiosity and find creative ways of getting kids to learn. Kids don't all learn the same way so teaching require a big bag of tricks, especially in the early years. Teachers are huge role models for kids and often get them interested in a subject they want to pursue for the rest of their lives. Adults always remember the teachers who inspired them the most. They would also remember the teachers who made life miserable for them. Our society should pay teachers much more to attract more of the best people to become teachers.
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