When I was in middle school I began writing a lot, and
eventually joined the high school newspaper staff. Through my work on the
newspaper, I was able to interview many of the teenage movie stars and singers
of the 1980’s. After my telephone interview with River Phoenix, I got into a
long conversation with his publicist and his personal manager. What they had to
tell me about managing a performer’s career fascinated me, and from then on I
always made a point to talk to publicists and personal managers after I was
done interviewing their clients. By my senior year of high school, I was set on
becoming a publicist. My senior English teacher was extremely supportive of
this idea, but my guidance counselor was openly disappointed with me. My
parents were always very clear that we were to choose our own careers and to be
independent, so I had their good wishes but did not receive much practical help
from the guidance department at my school.
Because of the lack of direction at the high school level,
when I started at the University I was torn about what my major should be. I
had been warned that a degree in Communications was too broad, so I finally
chose English/Professional Writing. I continued writing entertainment columns
and reviews for the university newspaper, and also had a radio show on the
school’s station. In my second semester at the University I had to take a
Speech class, and the professor, Dr. Gary Balfantz, truly changed my life. I
had long ago given up the idea that I would ever speak in front of groups or do
anything that wasn’t done in an office or on the phone. He pushed me to become
active in the theater department and provided me with the opportunity to travel
around the country performing.
I began to doubt the value of an English/Professional
Writing degree for me, and after talking with my parents I decided to add a
Secondary Education component to my degree so that I would have a few more
career options when I graduated. I still did not picture myself teaching, but
imagined I might go into a graduate program in performing arts.
My senior project at the University was a play that I
adapted and directed based upon a short story by Tom Robbins entitled The Purpose of the Moon. While this
project was still in development, I had to do my field experience for my
Methods of Teaching class. Two weeks in a middle school classroom convinced me
that I was going to be a teacher after all. I completed my Student Teaching the following
spring, and graduated from the University with a Bachelor of Science in English/Secondary
Education.
My dad encouraged me to accept any teaching position that
was available. I applied for every single English position advertised in our
professional library at the University. I had three offers in one week: a
bilingual classroom in Crystal City, Texas; a missionary school in Bogota,
Columbia; and a private school in the Rift Valley of Kenya. Despite my
willingness to complete those applications, I was suddenly unready to move to
Africa. I sometimes wish I had gone for it, but I am very happy with where I am
today, so I don’t regret my decision. I took a local night school position in
which I taught English to a group of students who were out of regular school as
they were processed through the court system for a variety of reasons. I was surprised
at how much I came to care for these most difficult of students, and ever since
then I have been especially drawn toward working with behaviorally challenged
teenagers. This has made me popular with guidance counselors!
Later that year, the night school job turned into a regular
daytime job in the Wilson School District in Pennsylvania. I taught yearbook,
drama, and English. I quickly realized that my heart was in teaching theater,
and when the administration of Wilson made it clear that a full-time drama
teacher was not in their future plans, I decided to move to Florida where
full-time positions were more readily available. I quickly found a job at Lake
Howell High School in Winter Park, and I have been happily teaching theater
classes there for sixteen years. (Four years later, Wilson got a full-time drama teacher. Such is life.)
My greatest challenge at Lake Howell has been my enormous
class sizes. I have had classes with as many as 85 students. My average class size is about 50. This is
partially due to the school’s efforts to meet the Class Size Amendment in academic
courses, but it is also because I have a policy of not turning away anyone who
signs up for theater. I have learned a great deal about crowd management, but I am always working to
improve my methods of keeping as many students engaged in our daily classroom
activities as possible.
My best development in recent years has been to embrace
portfolio assessment in my classroom for all of my courses. I am very proud of
the results, and more importantly so are the students. Every LHHS theater
student graduates with a solid document of all they learned about public
speaking, acting, production, and management.
