Mr. Gaetan Pappalardo

The 2010-2011 West Deptford Teacher of the Year is Mr. Gaetan Pappalardo. Mr. Pappalardo is just completing his tenth year as a Third Grade Teacher at Green-Fields Elementary School where he had also student taught and served as a Second Grade Long-Term Substitute Teacher.

In his role as a third grade classroom teacher, Mr. Pappalardo has truly been ahead of the curve in terms of understanding early on as the paradigm began to shift from a traditional, "one-size-fits-all," whole group instructional model to that of a student-centered, individualized methodologies. Mr. Pappalardo has long been willing to take a progressive approach to differentiate instruction to meet the needs of all students, especially those that were at risk. Year-after-year, Mr. Pappalardo has been unwavering in his enthusiasm and devotion to ensure that all of his students leave his classroom with the strategies, the skill sets, and most importantly, the desire to be lifelong, independent learners.

In addition to serving as an advisor to a number of after school clubs and providing a number of staff in-service training opportunities, to his credit, Mr. Pappalardo has many accolades for which he has made his school and district proud. Among these accomplishments are:

• maintaining an educational blog for The George Lucas Foundation's Edutopia.com;
• co-managing discoverwriting.com with international renowned author and speaker, Barry Lane;
• being named as one of four Interns to serve at the Center for Teaching and Learning, which is run by one of the most highly respected educators in the United States, Nancy Atwell;
• being selected as a Fellow to the Pennsylvania Writing and Literature Project and the National Writing Project; and
• having a children's literature book published electronically through eReadia.

Congratulations to Mr. Pappalardo on this most well deserved honor!