Photo by Lester Smith
State Representative Tami Zawistowski, second from left, listens as teacher Carl Casinghino explains what he is doing in his Suffield High School video production class. From the left: Superintendent of Schools Karen Berasi, Zawistowski, Principal Steve Moccio, Casinghino. Representative Zawistowsk had been invited to see some examples of what goes on at the school.
Suffield Superintendent of Schools Karen Berasi, in response to an interest expressed by State Representative Tami Zawistowski in what goes on in a modern high school, invited her to come have a look. So early Monday morning, December 19, Representative Zawistowski arrived at Suffield High and was escorted in a tour of several classrooms by Superintendent Berasi and Principal Steve Moccio.
The group headed first to Room 203, where teacher Carl Casinghino and a dozen students, freshmen to seniors, were working on the elements of video production, an elective class. It was an unusual classroom, partitioned off to include a production studio with its own control room. Mr. Casinghino mentioned that the morning announcements for the school were produced, narrated, and broadcast in live video by his students. (As reported in last October’s Observer, he was recently named by the National Council of Teachers of English as the 2016 national winner of the council’s Media Literacy Award.)
Around the corner in Room 411, where math teacher Mark Janik was teaching Algebra 2, 20 students at whiteboards were finding the solution to a quadratic equation through factoring, using an efficient method Janik called sliding and dividing. He was working at a “smartboard,” which digitally recorded his pigment-less markings. Mr. Moccio commented, as the visitors moved to their next stop, that the schools had been able to install only a handful of smartboards so far, but every classroom had at least one computer.
Across the corridor in Room 405, the group observed as science teacher Joe Grimard demonstrated the use of spectroscopy. Visitors and students together put on special spectacles to see how light sources can be separated into their characteristic spectrums, a method used by astronomers to determine the constituents of astral bodies, as well as their approaching or receding velocities.
During that stop, Representative Zawistowski was introduced briefly to two other members of the school system’s central staff: Esther Boake-Dattey, 6-12 Math and Science Curriculum Leader, and Steve Autieri, 6-12 Science Curriculum Leader.
Returning down “Main Street” to the next stop, Zawistowski remarked on the five big banners suspended overhead, reading RESPONSIBILITY, RESPECT, CREATIVITY, INTEGRITY, and RIGOR. Her guides explained that these were the core values of the school, defined by the Board of Education. The banners were hung in October.
The next stop turned out to be back in the first room visited, but Room 203 had now become a classroom for French 5. Video teacher Casinghino’s main subject is world language, and he was working with 16 students increasing their vocabulary and fluency in French as well as becoming familiar with French culture.
Following the tour, Representative Zawistowski commented, “I was truly impressed by how engaged these students were in the learning process, and how these great teachers have instilled in them a sense of not just being satisfied with finding a solution to a question or problem – but of understanding the importance of how and why a particular solution works.”