Teach your children well? Yes they do

NAME: SCHOOL: SUBJECT: YEARS IN EDUCATION: GREATEST TEACHING SATISFACTION:

Riccardo Latrano Haverford Italian 38

Preparing the students for a world in which learning another language and its culture is a necessity. or Cheryl Scartozzi, flexibility is the key to keeping the middle school grades running smoothly at St. James Regional Catholic School in Ridley Park, whether it’s working with fellow teachers on a cross-subject project or dealing with the surprises a classroom full of eighth-graders can bring.

“You have to do it all,” said Scartozzi. “Sometimes you’re a nurse, sometimes you’re a counselor, sometimes you’re a teacher.”

Today she also is one of 19 winners of the annual Excellence in Teaching Awards to be handed out Thursday night at the annual Partners In Education gala put on by the Franklin Mint Federal Credit Union at the Drexelbrook.

Beyond her current dayto-day work in the classroom, Scartozzi has shown flexibility across her 44 years as a parochial school teacher. First entering the classroom when lay teachers were the exception to the rule in Catholic primary schools, today her English Language Arts teaching methods include a theaterin-the-round approach to reading Shakespeare and interactive test preparation on tablet computers.

Students are also expected to be flexible and put down their Chromebooks for tried-and-true teaching methods from the old school of Catholic education. “Diagraming sentences was a part of life back then,” said Scartozzi. “I still do diagraming with my seventh- and eighthgraders. They look at the board and see the design of the sentence – there’s a benefit to it.”

A mix of passion and practicality drew Scartozzi into education. After playing teacher to her dolls as a child, she had narrowed her career paths down to education or nursing while a student at West Catholic High School.

Her first teaching experience came before high school while still a student at her parish school, Our Lady of Loreto, in her native Southwest Philadelphia. “Our school there was relatively new. We had four classrooms and we only had four nuns – our principal was also a teacher,” she said. The limited resources meant that if a teacher was out of the classroom, the school turned to the student body instead of a substitute teacher pool. “I think I was as tall in eighth grade as I am now, and I could reach the board. Sister told me she listened to me over the PA one time and said ‘you were a natural.’”

Scartozzi made the entrance to full-time teaching through the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s cadet program. The archdiocesan education office would

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