Awards for Excellence in Precollegiate Teaching
2007 Precollegiate Teaching Award
Imagine this scene: a Harvard freshman from a public school meets his new roommate, who is a product of a private school well known for its academic excellence. In conversation, it emerges that both of them took Latin in school. �Six years of it did nothing for me,� says the private school boy. The other student�s reaction is instinctive. �Oh, I�m so sorry,� he says, in the tone that one uses when one hears that someone is tone deaf or has never seen the ocean. They laugh, and one asks what the other meant. �If only you met my teacher,� the student from Amherst-Pelham Regional School District answers, �you�d know what I mean.�
Sean Smith is that teacher, and his students and colleagues bear ample witness that he can do what the best teachers do for our subject: show that it is as indispensable to life as music and as rich and unfathomable as nature. At the Amherst-Pelham Regional High School and Middle School in Massachusetts, he guides students from seventh grade beginners to Advanced Placement seniors, and in addition serves as chair of a 14-person department offering six languages in grades 7-12.
The best Latin teachers not only inspire students once they have found our subject, but also guide them to it. As Sean Smith says, �we have the best stories,� and he turns these stories into plays��Perseus: The Hero,� �The Face that Launched a Thousand Ships,� and half a dozen others. Each year his middle school students perform these plays for sixth graders in the four elementary school that feed Amherst Middle School. The result is a rich annual harvest of eager beginners in seventh grade. If you have used the Ecce Romani audio files, you have heard some of Sean Smith�s middle school Latin students, and you can attest to the exemplary pronunciation that they learn from him and to the enthusiasm for Latin that he imparts.
Sean Smith has served our profession at a member of the SAT II Latin Committee, an AP Consultant, and as a mentor to dozens of practice teachers from the University of Massachusetts, from which he received his M.A.T. in 1985. He has presented papers at meetings of CANE and CAAS and at the ACL Institute, and he is the one of the authors of Catullus: A Legamus Transitional Reader. His collaborator, Prof. Ken Kitchell, attests to his philological skills and sensitivity to questions of interpretation.
�If only you knew my teacher.� We are lucky to know Sean Smith and to have him as our colleague, and it is my very great honor to present him with the 2008 APA Precollegiate Teaching Award.
How many of us know German as well as we would like? How many of us could teach it if we had to? The recipient of this year�s APA Precollegiate Teaching Award has earned advanced, secondary level professional certification in Latin and German, and she began her academic life as a freshman at Bryn Mawr College intending to major in mathematics.
How many of us have a former student who can say, �In my second year studying Civil Engineering at Princeton, I have been able to apply my knowledge from her Latin class to a Roman architecture history course. . . . The foundation in Classics that [she] created for me has aided me tremendously in understanding architectural design in the context of ancient Rome?� This year�s recipient has never failed to show her students the totality of the ancient world, including its material culture.
How many of us would dare to give our students a worksheet with nine absolutely horrible macaronic Latin puns? Example: If your Latin teacher orders you to do something, do you do it? Answer: Iubet.
These examples merely sketch the breadth, creativity, and good humor of Mary Ann Staley�s teaching and learning. For thirty-five years in both private and public schools she has, as one of her colleagues says, �modeled excellence in the teaching of Latin.� In 2001 she was one of the first Latin teachers to receive certification from the National Board for Teaching Standards. At that time there were no certification standards for Latin teachers, so she adapted the guidelines for English Language Arts to our subject and was successfully certified.
For the past twenty-four years she has taught our subject in the Howard County Public School System in Maryland. Her students and their parents attest to her dedicated labors in a vineyard where the climate has not always been congenial to the full fruition of Latin; for example, it was only in the 2005-2006 school year that she was able to introduce Advanced Placement Latin to Glenelg High School. But introduce it she did, and between that year and this the course has grown from six to 28 students. One of the first students in her AP course speaks of the joy she found in Mrs. Staley�s creative approach to teaching�dare I mention the Ginger Roman Cookie Project?�and of the �constant patience, quiet confidence, and supportive instruction� that she found in Mrs. Staley�s Latin classroom.
I have spoken of labors in an uncongenial vineyard. That same student saw� three Latin teachers . . . enter and then leave� during her four years in high school. Mary Ann Staley has had to be a teacher of Latin teachers. She has patiently taught teachers with little or no training in the language, served as a guest teacher and example in their classes, and done everything that she could to make sure that those who wanted to learn Latin, thanks in large part to her example, had the best possible instruction.
For her sound learning, creative teaching, good humor, and tireless endeavors on behalf of the important subject that we all teach, I have the very great honor to present the 2008 APA Precollegiate Teaching Award to Mary Ann Staley.
The Joint Committee on the Classics in American Education invites nominations for the 2008 APA Awards for Excellence in Teaching at the Precollegiate Level. Up to two winners will be honored with $300 cash awards. The winners will be announced at both the APA Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, PA in January 2009 and the ACL Institute in Los Angeles, CA in June 2009, and winners may select the meeting at which they wish to receive the award.
Eligibility is open to teachers, full- or part-time, of grades K-12 in schools in the United States and Canada who at the time of the application teach at least one class of Latin, Greek, or classics at the K-12 level. Membership in the APA is not required. Nominations may be made by a colleague, administrator, or former student, who is thoroughly familiar with the teacher's work. (Additional guidelines for nominators are offered below.)
The nomination packet should consist of three components and should be submitted collated in sextuplicate under one cover. The components are 1) a letter of nomination; the letter may come from someone within the educational institution of the nominee; 2) a letter of support from someone in the field of classical studies; and 3) the candidate's current curriculum vitae. Nomination letters should indicate how the candidate meets the criteria of the award. The letter is the key to the candidate's continuation in the selection process.
The Committee reviews nominations and invites the submission of full dossiers for selected nominees. Note these new instructions for the full dossiers: These dossiers must also be submitted collated in sextuplicate and will include
1. a short cover letter with a one-paragraph summary of the nominee's key achievements as a teacher.
2. a curriculum vitae Ð no more than 2 pages.
3. a personal statement of no more than 750 words in which the nominee explains his or her achievements in terms of vision, strategies, and methods.
4. letters of recommendation:
a. no more than two letters from a supervisor or colleague in the field of classics or foreign language teaching;
b. no more than four letters from students and/or recent graduates or parents.
5. portfolio materialsÑe.g., pedagogical materials, program flyers, class memorabilia, news clippings. The complete portfolio should contain no more than 10 items and should not exceed 20 pages or the electronic equivalent.
Applicants will be compared and judged by quality rather than quantity of application materials and are asked to be selective rather than comprehensive.
Award winners are selected by a subcommittee of the Joint Committee on the Classics in American Education, whose membership is selected equally from both the APA and the American Classical League. September 15, 2008 is the deadline for the postmark of nominations.
Applications should be submitted to the ACL/APA Joint Committee on the Classics in American Education, c/o The American Philological Association, 292 Logan Hall, University of Pennsylvania, 249 South 36th Street, Philadelphia PA 19104-6304, to which questions about the competition may be directed. (apaclassics@sas.upenn.edu).
Additional Guidelines for Nominators
The key to a successful nomination is detailed information about the nominee's teaching practices and results. The nominator plays a crucial role in gathering and presenting this information. The additional letters of support should be from students, colleagues, administrators, parents, etc. who can also speak in detail about the nominee. Due to the fact that all of the nominees are usually highly qualified, letters of nomination must move far beyond general statements that the nominee is an excellent teacher.
Supporting Materials for the Second Round
Finalists in the competition will be invited to submit additional supporting materials such as innovative teaching units, Latin publicity items, additional testimonials and recommendations, etc. As noted above, these materials must be submitted collated in sextuplicate and cannot be returned except under special circumstances.
Every application should address at least four of the following criteria:
á success, size, and growth of the classics program in the candidate's school
á outreach and promotion of the classics
á innovative and creative classroom activity
á evidence of improved student learning
á student success in contests and competitions
á movement of significant numbers of students to the next level of study
á student travel and field trips ranging from study of local architecture to study abroad
á the teacher's professional service and professional development including workshops (both taken and given), papers presented, offices held, awards received, etc.