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I wake up about 6:30 a.m. My wife and I have breakfast in
Robbins House, usually Cheerios® with rice milk. We iron
each other’s clothes. Denise works at Harvard Law School
in the financial aid office, so I drive her to the T [public
transit] each morning. Then I go to assembly.
I teach Class V (eighth grade) Spanish and Spanish I. I like
to expose students to Spanish culture through music, so we
start off all my classes listening to music. Recently, we’ve
heard Pepe Romero’s guitar solos and the sounds of Los
Rodriguez, an alternative rock group from Argentina.
 I
like to get students out of their seats – get them moving.
We often begin dialogues in what I call survival Spanish.
Sometimes in the first semester, we use a little English.
When they return for second semester, we use phrases for “I
want, I need, I should, I can” and “I know.”
I show them how much they already know. In Latin culture,
the national pastime is conversation. Everything is based
on getting people together and talking. Eating is almost secondary
to conversation.
At the end of each year, I ask students what they needed more
of, or what we covered that they didn’t think was useful.
I change my focus just a little each year, using the feedback
I get from students.
 I
like to go to bed early, get up early. I don’t
like wearing a watch. This watch [pulls out pocket watch]
was a wedding present from my wife. It looks like the one
my grandfather always had.
I’m definitely a schedule guy. I’m a list-maker.
I have to schedule everything, or I can’t get it done.
I’m working on a master’s degree at Boston College.
Everything is on my schedule, not just class time: my office
hours—always from 3 to 4 p.m. on Monday, Tuesday and
Thursday—when kids come to talk, I plan classes or catch
up with others in my department; my afternoon nap; then I
run about three miles at a quarter of five most days; then
I come back here for a sit-down dinner with the dorm. On Thursday,
I’m on duty and I run dinner.
On Wednesday, I head to Boston College in the afternoon. I
finish my classes at 5 p.m., then I meet my wife for dinner
at Carlos’s in Brighton. It’s Italian. It’s
great.
But everything on my schedule comes first. I make sure I have
time to give to myself so that I can give to other people.
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All of us faculty members
in Robbins House organize events—a
pumpkin carving contest in October and holiday ornament
decorating in December, for example. We go bowling at
Ron’s in Hyde Park, where they make their own ice
cream. Last Monday night, the girls hired my dad, who’s
a magician, to perform. It was fun.
What else? I’m the tech guy for the department.
I also paint watercolors. If I hadn’t become a teacher,
I would’ve been a painter.
Other faculty members in Robbins House are the Banderobs
[John and Erica], the Warrens [John and Laura], Rachel
Klein and Molly Scharfe. |
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This is my fourth year in Robbins House, which has 40 girls;
it’s my sixth year of teaching.
I grew up in Dorchester [part of Boston], went to B.C High
and then to Holy Cross. Even in high school, I wanted to become
a Spanish teacher. I went on a foreign exchange program to
La Coruña and in college went away to the University
of Salamanca. After college, an amazing opportunity to learn
to teach at Exeter was a real gift to me –an internship.
I really learned how to teach.
At Milton, we have an amazing modern languages
department. It’s like family. The Spanish department
is a team of seven teachers, all working toward the same goal.
As a department, we push students as hard as we can. They
meet that challenge. We push them in a way that they enjoy
themselves without always realizing how much they’re
learning.
It feels good to know a school well. Now, I can really focus
on teaching. I love my subject. I love the kids, the excitement
in the modern languages department right now. We have a blast.
I think that Milton does boarding
really well. The faculty members who work in the dorm love
it and are committed to supporting the needs of the students.
For me, character education is a big thing: being responsible,
being on time, the value of being dedicated to the work at
hand.
It’s really fun to teach these kids. When I see them
communicating in another language that I helped them learn,
it’s one of the best things in the world.
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