Joseph Franceschini ‘added spark’ to whatever he taught
Advance correspondent
BRISTOL BOROUGH - How would you like to be the kind of retired teacher that gets a standing ovation from the bleachers when you return to school for a basketball game?
How would you like your legacy to be such that faces of students from decades past light up at the mention of your name?
Take a page from Joseph Franceschini’s book and it could happen. Even after two retirements - Bristol High School (1993) and Conwell-Egan Catholic High School (2005), “Mr. Fran” holds sway over those who sat in his classroom.
“Mr. Fran added spark to whatever he taught us,” said Michelle LeNoir, project coordinator for the Bristol Borough 21st Century Community Learning Center and a 2004 graduate of Conwell-Egan. “He would take on the voices of the characters in whatever we were reading. He would act out scenes and bring them to life.”
Franceschini cared about his students both in and out of the classroom. He had an open door policy that put students at ease and he always followed up on what students were doing in school or in their personal lives, LeNoir said.
And he seemed to be just the guy to ease kids through teen-age angst. On a recent morning, he sat the dining room table in his cozy Taylor Street house reflecting on his teaching career.
“I’d tell the kids not to worry about anything. I told them that when I was in high school, I was the outsider. I didn’t get dates. I wasn’t invited places. I lost myself in my books and I think that’s how I came to love literature so much,” he said.
Franceschini is a lifelong borough resident. He lives with his wife Sondra and boasts of his married daughters, Carla Benincasa and Marisa Pirri, and his grandchildren. But if this self-described “loner” endured a rocky journey through adolescence, he finished his career as the recipient of much adulation.
Franceschini graduated from Bristol High in 1950 and from West Chester University in 1954. He took graduate courses at the University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, and Trenton State. He spent the summer of 1953 at the Sorbonne in Paris to “polish” his French, he said.
He taught at Bristol High from 19601993 and Conwell-Egan from 1996-2005.
“I wanted to be a really good teacher and I poured my heart and soul into it,” he said.
In appreciation for his work, Francheschini will be one of four retired Bristol teachers to be honored at the 2012 Bristol Fall Classic to be held from 7-11 p.m. Nov. 17 at Canal Works, Beaver and Canal streets. The other honorees are also educators who had an impact both in the classroom as well as on the lives of Bristol Borough students.
Tickets for the event are $50 and checks may be made out to the Bristol Borough 21st Century Community Center (or BB21CCLC). Mail checks to the Bristol Borough Advsory and Oversight Committee, 680 Radcliffe Street, Bristol 19007, Attn.: Mary Gesualdi.
Refreshment includes hors d’oeuvres, beer, wine, soft drinks, coffee and dessert.
Money raised will benefit the Bristol Borough 21st Century Community Center, a free, after-school program for Bristol Borough elementary, middle and high school students.