Lisa Ptak
Dedicated, Focused, and Born to Teach
By the time she was a junior at
Crosby High School in Waterbury, Lisa Ptak was certain she wanted to be a
history teacher. Knowing of her aspirations, three members of the history
department at the school devised an unprecedented experiment for Ptak during
her senior year: She was to teach four class periods, each with a different
group of freshmen. Joseph Macary, one of the teachers, says that the feeling
among the three colleagues was: “We’ve got a great student here—let’s let
her learn.”
After reviewing the material to be
covered and receiving a bit of instruction for how to develop a lesson plan,
Ptak prepared her notes and maps and taught, over the course of a couple of
weeks, one honors-level history class, one remedial class, and two regular
sections. A lot of lessons were learned, and not just by the freshmen.
Admits Ptak, “It was definitely a lot harder than I thought it would be.”
Not surprising to her teachers, however, was the fact that Ptak did a great
job. Macary, who is now supervisor of social studies for the district, says,
“She’s dedicated, she’s focused, and she has a lot of patience. She was born
to teach.”
Ptak, a CCSU sophomore, is enrolled
in the Honors Program and is preparing to enter the Teacher Education
Program. A history major, she has a real passion for her discipline. The
value of studying history, she notes, is that we can learn from past
mistakes to create a better future. “It’s not about memorizing dates,” she
says. “It’s understanding causes and effects—and that’s what’s interesting
to me.” Associate Professor of History Glenn Sunshine, who taught Ptak in a
historical methods course, says that she has the intelligence and the skills
to be an excellent historian. He states, “She does two things very well: she
learns what others are saying and she forms her own independent
judgment.”
In one key assignment for
Sunshine’s course, Ptak used transcriptions of court documents as primary
sources for an investigation into the witch trials in Geneva during the
Reformation. Geneva’s witch-hunting followed a historically different
pattern from other places, notes Sunshine. The way that Ptak linked that
fact to the theology of reformer John Calvin was, he says, not only “elegant
and convincing,” but also original and perhaps even publishable.
In addition to distinguishing
herself in academic work that furthers her teaching aspirations, Ptak has
capitalized on opportunities for experiential learning. During the summer,
Ptak has worked as a camp counselor for the Parks and Recreation Department
of the City of Waterbury, and during semester breaks she volunteers at the
elementary school she attended as a child. She never knows which grade or
class she’ll be sent to assist, and she has enjoyed gaining broad insight
into the curricula of young students.
Since her first semester at CCSU,
Ptak has also worked for the Alumni Association’s phonathons, turning the
task of raising money for her university into an opportunity to learn from
dozens of current and former teachers who have benefited from CCSU’s
programs. Where and what do you teach, she asks. What kinds of methods work
for that subject matter? Says Ptak, “I love getting advice.”
Ptak’s ultimate goal, in fact, is
to not only seek more advice from her old mentors at Crosby High, but also
to join them as a colleague. “I feel at home when I go back,” she says.
“It’s a special kind of community at Crosby.”
She also points out that suburban
schools and urban schools like those in Waterbury are “two different worlds.
I know the types of kids and maybe I can get to them better than somebody
who’s never had an experience in an urban setting.”
She says she’d like to model
herself on the teachers at Crosby in part because of their support for and
commitment to their students both in and out of the classroom. “A lot of the
teachers at my school really invested in their students. Seeing that made me
want to be a teacher more,” she says. “I know I’d want to make a
difference.”
—
Leslie Virostek
Back to Students
