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Princeton High’s Will Hare takes his place among the state’s top runners. Page 7A
Vol. 129, NO. 23
Published every Friday
Friday, June 9, 2017
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Photo by Philip Sean Curran
Linda Weber
Answering the calling Cranbury School’s Teacher of the Year connects with kids By Philip Sean Curran Staff Writer
Photo by Rebecca Nowalski
Berry, berry good Bridget Kohn, 7, of Cranbury, enjoys some strawberries and cake at the annual Cranbury Strawberry Festival June 3 at the First Presbyterian Church of Cranbury. For more photos of the festival, see Page 3.
Writing that’s as good as gold Elaina Phillips fueled by desire to try again until she succeeded By Mike Morsch Executive Editor
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Last year, Cranbury School student Elaina Phillips approached English teacher Elizabeth Grimaldi with a request: Elaina had written a piece that she wanted published in the school’s online newsletter. But the story contained several errors and seemed like it had been written in a rush, the teacher believed. Not wanting to discourage Elaina from writing, Grimaldi asked Elaina to do some more work on it and resubmit it for consideration. “I was worried that I had hurt her feelings,” said Grimaldi, lead teacher of the English team. “Instead of giving up, she was fueled
by the desire to try again and to succeed.” It took another year, but boy, did Elaina succeed. She was recently honored with a gold medal in the 2017 National Scholastic Art and Writing Awards competition and was honored in a national ceremony June 8 at Carnegie Hall in New York. According to Grimaldi, Elaina’s story was written in response to an assignment that Grimaldi had developed as part of the eighth grade curriculum. The writing assignment followed an extensive study of the Gothic genre. Students were given a set of instructions that required them to adhere to a fully aligned Gothic tale. They then had to incorporate the characteristics of the genre in order to perform well on the assignment. “We don’t ask them to write it until after they’ve read and studied the works of Edgar Allen Poe and several other modern Gothic writers,” said Grimaldi. “They are ready to write the story when the time comes due to the extensive author studies. Elaina’s story is characterized by sophisticated language and vivid imagery, and a great dose of character development. The piece was submitted in rough draft form and I gave her some feedback. She made some revisions and eventually submitted it.” It is the second gold medal
Courtesy photo
Teacher Elizabeth Grimaldi stands with Elaina Phillips outside the Cranbury School. award winner from the Cranbury School in as many years. Last year, Uma Mani won a gold medal in the same competition. The title of Elaina’s piece is “If You See It” and takes place near an old barn (could be in Cranbury?) and to quote from the author, a woman named Sosia, “She was a supernatural figure who became an exact replica of you if you saw her - or basically your doppelganger.” In addition to Elains’ gold medal, other Cranbury School students were recognized in this
year’s competition, including: Grace Heilbronn: Gold Key in Short Story for Mortem’s Chamber of the Forgotten; Layla MobinUddin: Silver Key in Journalism for Action Against Hunger in Syria and an Honorable Mention in Science Fiction/Fantasy for Quake of the Queen; Victoria Pagano: Honorable Mention in Poetry for Pitter Thump Patter Thump; Priya Patel: Honorable Mention in Short Story for A New Cinderella Story and a Silver Key in Critical Essay for School Start Times and Sleep PatSee WRITING, Page 7
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Linda Weber parks in the same spot each morning outside Cranbury School, where she is a fifthgrade teacher. She arrives by 7:30 a.m. and leaves well past the time that the school day has ended and her some 23 pupils have gone home. “Teaching’s a calling,” she said. “It’s not a job, it’s never been a job, because if it was, I’d be doing something else maybe.” Recognized as the 2017 Teacher of the Year by the school district, she has been a professional educator since 1998 in what was a mid-life career change that started with her going back to college as an older woman. “It made me come alive, it really did. It was a tremendous, exciting time in my life going to school,” she said. “I think I always was a teacher. Always.” Seated at a table in her classroom on a recent Wednesday afternoon, she discussed her life and career path, her work in Cranbury and that “bittersweet” moment of seeing her students leave at the end of the school year. “I think if you’re in this job, you have to know that everything changes, every year, with them,” she said of her students. “Every group you have, every group of kids, is different.” “I do not lower the bar for anybody,” she said later. “But everybody’s bar is in a different area, because I want to see growth, individually, for children. And that has always been pretty much who I’m about.” She seeks to connect with her students, interested in their lives in and out of school. They can laugh together and cry together. As a mom, she can understand what it is like to be on the other side of parent-teacher conferences. “I always have to put myself in their chair first …,” she said. For Weber, she grew up in Freehold in a small family of four, with her parents and a sister. She had more than a taste of rural life in New Jersey, as her paternal grandparents were chicken farmers who also grew produce. “So as a kid, I learned to grow my vegetables and sell them in a stand,” she recalled. “My father thought it was really good to be See TEACHER, Page 7
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