Teachers learn in workshops

CSI's Discovery Institute stages interdisciplinary conference and 400 attend

Staten Island Advance - May 9, 2004May 9, 2004

Students hurl insults at one another in Denise Simone’s classroom.

Not babyish names, but nasty, brutal punches meant to pierce each other’s surfaces.
And the Susan Wagner High School teacher is so pleased with her pupils’ behavior, she hopes her colleagues achieve the same results.

Ms. Simone encourages her students to adopt Shakespeare’s insults to help them demystify the Bard’s works. She was one of two dozen instructors who presented workshops yesterday at the Discovery Institute’s third annual interdisciplinary conference.

“If a kid can’t read ‘Pigman,’ he feels bad about himself. But if a kid can’t read Shakespeare, he’s on equal ground with honors kids. Shakespeare is the great equalizer,” said the English teacher.

The all-day conference at the College of Staten Island, Willowbrook, brought together a mix of 400 kindergarten through grade 12 public school teachers, college students preparing to become teachers and faculty members from the Discovery Institute, a program of the college.

“At the heart of the Discovery Institute’s commitment is the premise that teachers at all levels can work together and discuss and explore different strategies in a collaborative environment and as equals,” said Dr. Leonard Ciaccio, co-director of the program.

Teachers must find ways not only to impart basic skills, but must do so in an engaging fashion, said his co-director, Dr. James Sanders. Often that means tying lessons into everyday ideas, he said.

In a workshop called “Tacos for Everyone,” Dr. Lisa Marano, an assistant professor of mathematics at West Chester (Pa.) University, presented a fictional situation in which the restaurant chain Taco Bell offered to give every American a free taco if the Russian space station Mir splashed into a target in the Pacific Ocean.

The hypothetical Taco Bell took an insurance policy to cover its loses. Dr. Marano’s session investigated how insurance companies price policies as an example of a project that can be given to students.

Still, for many conference participants, the most valuable component of the day was the conversations that occurred outside the formal workshops.

“You find out things you can’t learn from a textbook, like how to keep kids’ attention,” said Stephanie Gioe, a CSI early childhood education student getting on-the-job training at PS 14 in Stapleton.

As unprecedented numbers of seasoned teachers continue to hit retirement age and novices take their places, cross-pollination between generations of instructors will become more crucial, said Diane McGivern, Staten Island’s representative to the Board of Regents, the state’s policy-setting body for kindergarten through high education. She gave the conference’s keynote address.

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