retirements
8 ◆ Newtonite, Newton North
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Carol Seitz keeps students engaged in class PERRIN STEIN “I loved languages from the first moment I took Latin as a freshman in high school,” said Spanish teacher Carol Seitz, who has taught Spanish for 40 years and taught French for 25 years. Having grown up in Wheeling, West Virginia, Seitz didn’t have a chance to begin taking languages until she started Triadelphia High School in 1962. She went on to attend West Virginia University because her grandfather was a professor there. Seitz majored in French, but began taking Spanish as a sophomore. She continued to study both of these subjects until her graduation in 1970. Right before graduation, Seitz went on a French exchange program with a few other students. “It was the first exchange that West Virginia University went on, and it changed my life. I realized there was a lot to see in the world, and I wasn’t going to end up staying in West Virginia for the rest of my life—I had to go see the world,” Seitz said. This was a somewhat radical decision because most people in West Virginia in the ’70s didn’t travel much or move very far from where they grew up, according to Seitz. Because she wanted to see the world, Seitz decided to move to Boston with her college roommate, Joyce Plotkin. Seitz moved to Boston with the hopes of going into publishing, but she went into teaching instead. She was hired by Bigelow principal Robert Frost in 1970. “Despite my lack of experience, I was hired because I could teach both French and Spanish,” Seitz said. “I had to develop the Spanish curriculum at Bigelow, and I wasn’t even given a classroom,
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Teddy Wenneker
“I like students to be involved,” says Spanish teacher Carol Seitz. “Just sitting and listening to the teacher is boring,” so I had to conduct my classes in the typing room.” One day during Seitz’s first year of teaching, she decided to go see a publishing house with her friend who had an interview there. “The publishing house had a lot of people sitting around in offices working. It looked really boring, and I realized that I would rather be in my classroom ‘playing’ with my kids. This made me realize I was meant to be a teacher,” Seitz recalled. Due to declining enrollment, Seitz was moved to Newton North in 1984. Bigelow was about to close, and the Newton Public School system was moving
around a lot of teachers including Seitz, she said. As she became better at French and Spanish and began to teach at higher levels, Seitz decided to concentrate on Spanish because she often confused the two languages. “I realized that if I wanted to keep getting better at languages, and if I wanted to be best able to help my students, I would have to give up one of the languages I taught. I gave up French with regret, but in the end, it was the right decision.” During her time at this school, Seitz has led the Spanish exchange twice. “I had been to
Spain in 1974, but I really wanted to go back because it’s important to have a connection with the country you are teaching about,” Seitz said. She went to Madrid in 1992 and Burgos in 2006. In 1996, several years after leading the Spanish exchange to Madrid, Seitz received the Elicker Award for Excellence in Teaching, which teachers win for having a deep appreciation and knowledge of a subject matter, teaching that stretches the mind of students and standards for performance that inspire excellence, according to the criteria for the award. “It was wonderful to hear all these nice things people had to say about me. It showed me that people really do care about my teaching,” Seitz said. Seitz said she breaks her class into five or six parts: music of the week (a pop song Seitz plays at the beginning of each class), grammar, vocabulary, reading and a hands-on activity. “I like students to be involved. Just sitting and listening to the teacher is boring, so I’ve tried to keep adapting things to make them more interesting and hopefully, easier for students to understand,” Seitz said. Seitz has remained interested in teaching by adapting her curriculum over time, she said. She focuses on using technology as a learning tool. To do this, Seitz has created Powerpoint presentations to explain complicated grammar ideas, developed a Moodle project in her junior class and taken a course on design, so she can make worksheets look more inviting. “I try to remember that if I’m bored, my students will be bored,” Seitz said. Over the years, Seitz has worked with other members of the Spanish department on
grants, which will help them make their classes more interesting, she said. Spanish teacher Juanita O’Neill has worked with Seitz on grants that utilize music in the classroom. “Sra. Seitz is always looking for new ways to engage her students, and she found music to be one of these ways,” O’Neill said. World language department head Nancy Marrinucci met Seitz when Marrinucci began teaching at this school 10 years ago. “I will really miss her enthusiasm and presence in the world language department,” said Marrinucci. Spanish teacher Marla Glaskin fondly recalls meeting Seitz eight years ago when Glaskin began teaching at this school. “She told me that we would be sharing a classroom and that we could decorate it together. For me, this was a warm welcome into the world language department,” Glaskin recalled. Because they taught the same Spanish II class for many years, Glaskin said she has come to know Seitz well. “She’s very unique,” Glaskin said. “Let’s face it—how often do you meet someone who knits her own sweaters and designs websites? Never, except for Sra. Seitz.” Even though she is leaving a lot behind, Seitz said she has many plans for her retirement. She will be taking care of her grandchildren on Fridays, taking a more active role as chair of the Woburn Historical Commission and as a trustee of the Woburn Public Library, singing in the women’s Cantilina Chorale in Arlington and being the president of her knitting guild. As Marrinucci said, “the faculty at North will miss Sra. Seitz both as a friend and as a colleague.”
John Rob Stark makes students feel good about school KATE LEWIS “The way I see it, the good teachers are those who, no matter what happens during the day, they come back the next day to try it again,” said history teacher John Rob Stark. For over 20 years, Stark has been coming back the next day to teach history at Newton North, bringing his extensive knowledge of the subject to countless students. According to Stark, he has taught “every single history class there is,” excluding a few senior electives, in his time at North, including AP European History, Caribbean Civilizations and U.S. History. A graduate of Boston English High School and the University of New Hampshire, Stark originally worked in New Hampshire as a carpenter, until his wife convinced him to pursue a career in education. They moved to Massachusetts, where Stark taught carpentry and history at Meadowbrook and F.A. Day junior high schools. When Day became a middle school, he switched to Newton North and became a full-time history teacher. “History has always been my hobby, my love,” he said. “On my first day at Newton North, I taught three sections of Curriculum I U.S. History and two sections of Curriculum II,” he said. “In those days, students were much more free to create their own curriculum and their own view of how to present history. “I vividly remember that kids weren’t quite so stressed. Today,
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kids are more concerned with grades, testing, where they’re going to school. “My philosophy of life is that if you do well and as best you can today, tomorrow takes care of itself. “Back then, 20 kids would come back during X-block to talk about what was going on in the classroom. Now kids only come by to ask about a grade or make up a test,” Stark said. “I miss that.” Additionally, Stark said he thinks there is now a tendency for courses to be too standardized. “There is a tendency in education now for everything to be standardized,” Stark said. “Everybody needs to be on the same page, teaching the same curriculum. If that continues, Newton North will become the best mediocre school in the country.” Stark cites the most defining moments of his career as the ones when his teaching was able to make a student apply history to current events and make them think about the world around them. One of these moments came after President George H.W. Bush declared war on Iraq. Said Stark, “A senior came into my room and yelled out, ‘Damn you, Mr. Stark! Before your class I would have been gung-ho for the war, but after your class, I have to think about whether we should be in Iraq or not.’” Fellow history teacher Anthony Patelis said he has found working with Stark to be both a learning experience and an enjoyable one.
Jacob Schwartz
“History has always been my hobby, my love,” says history teacher John Rob Stark. “On numerous occasions throughout my career, he has stuck his head into my class and made disparaging remarks about me, resulting in the kids becoming hysterical,” Patelis said. “Obviously, I had to respond in a similar fashion.” “When he is talking to one of his students in his office, I usually console the student and remind them that next year, maybe they will get a history teacher who actually knows what he is talking about,” Patelis said. “That always bring a smile to Mr. Stark’s face.” All jokes aside, many of Stark’s fellow teachers have come to respect Stark’s knowledge, teaching ability and strong character. “He’s intelligent, well-read and
politically aware,” said Patelis. “Intentionally or not, he became a mentor to many people in our department, myself included.” Patelis said that he has Stark to thank for launching his own teaching career. “I was hired because Mr. Stark stuck his neck out for me,” he said. “The last 11 years have been the best years of my life here at Newton North, and I owe it all to Mr. Stark.” Jonathan Bassett, the history department head, has known Stark since Bassett started at Newton North as a teacher in 1986. “Mr. Stark has an ability to ‘read’ the class, and he is able to make all different kinds of students feel good about school,”
Bassett said. “Watching him teach is just a pleasure.” “He is one of those teachers that students come back and visit. I have been told by parents how much their kids love his class,” he said. After retiring from Newton North, Stark plans to write a historical fiction novel about Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, in addition to traveling, spending time with his family and supervising student teachers at Boston College, he said. “I say this to young people getting into the teaching profession who are nervous before class,” Stark said. “After 34 years of teaching, that never changes.” —JACOB BRUNELL CONTRIBUTED TO THIS ARTICLE.