Rochester fourth-grade teacher Lynn Astarita Gatto picked teaching as a profession long before she knew the theories behind what she was accomplishing in the classroom.
"Those intellectual aspects of teaching are an important part of who I
am as a teacher and what makes me a good teacher," says Gatto. Her selection
this week as New York State's Teacher of the Year recognizes her as a teacher
who digs deep to find the best practices to help all children.
"This award validates for me and my colleagues who teach like me that we're
on the right track," she says. "In my class, I create a core of learners.
Part of what makes me a unique teacher is we are all equal learners and we are
all learning together." When students read a story out loud, for instance,
any listener can pose a question. "Oh, I never knew that," Gatto might
say, or someone in the group could connect the story to other texts or popular
culture or their lives.
Because she wanted "to put theory behind what I do," Gatto enrolled
as a doctoral student at the Margaret Warner Graduate School of Education and
Human Development at the University of Rochester in 2000. "I have so many
people come to my classroom that I wanted to articulate my practice," she
says of her decision to pursue a Ph.D. "I quickly realized that there was
much more to being a doctoral student. I didn't understand I was going to become
a researcher and apply new research."
In her classroom, Gatto's desk adjoins those of her 22 students to form a large
rectangle in their corner of Henry Hudson Elementary in the Rochester City School
District. For 29 years, Gatto's classrooms have overflowed with noise and excitement.
She places a high premium on talk.
"Talk is the literacy my students bring to the classroom," says Gatto,
whose own teachers tried to hush her when she was a very talkative child. "For
us to squelch that and not let kids develop doesn't make sense."
Children have so much to say that Gatto is focusing on a specific type of classroom
talk for her doctoral work at the Warner School. With her coursework finished,
her dissertation will examine "eruptions of conversation" that happen
spontaneously in the classroom. "I'm looking at these simultaneous overlapping
conversations (SOC, she calls them) to see how they happen and how they connect
to meaning-making," she explains. From her experience, SOC is an important
part of children's learning.
As a fourth-grade teacher, Gatto knows she's responsible and accountable for
how her students perform on their first set of state language arts and math
tests. Every child in her class showed at least one year's growth from the third
to the fourth grade this year.
Gatto, a graduate of Brighton High School who earned a bachelor's degree at
Monmouth University in New Jersey, was set to take a sabbatical for the 2003-04
year and concentrate on her doctoral studies. She'll postpone that plan since
being named New York's 2004 Teacher of the Year.
In the fall, the Honeoye Falls resident will return to her classroom and assume
other duties associated with the honor. The award that recognizes and celebrates
outstanding teachers from kindergarten through 12th grade was announced June
16 in Albany. More than a dozen educational organizations in New York State
were involved in the selection process. She also will compete for the national
award.
Gatto's ambitious workload doesn't end with her fourth-grade class. She's published
articles in teacher journals, contributed a chapter to an academic book, and
written science modules for elementary school students. Each spring, she teaches
a course in the Warner School on the theory and learning of elementary science.