Suzanne Carbonaro

Working at a university that supports its surrounding community and schools in a positive way has been a very rewarding experience. I started working in Lawrenceville, NJ 9 years ago as an adjunct communication instructor when my family and I relocated from New York following 9/11.  I have always been fascinated by people who support their local community.  I often feel like we forget about our local communities when we support the big box stores that seem to have dominated our retail experiences.  My dad, Joe Marotta, always believed in supporting your local establishments- restaurants, retail stores, and churches.  Joe began a food pantry at his local church in Staten Island, NY, to feed and care for the poor in his neighborhood.  He owned a drug store in his hometown in Tompkinsville, Staten Island where now the street bears his name in honor of his contributions to his community and its people.  I have taken on his oath to “shop local” and make a conscious effort to regularly buy my food, pharmaceutical needs, and even jewelry at local vendors.  One of my favorite places to shop is the Trenton Farmer’s Market- where you can buy fresh produce, seafood, and meats from local farmers and retailers each week and Robbins Pharmacy in Ewing, NJ.  

Since moving to a small community in Central New Jersey, I have met some really wonderful and giving people who have made a difference in their community. None more passionate than a teacher from Hamilton, New Jersey who gives back to her students and community through her dedication and commitment to learning.  This young girl graduated from the College of New Jersey and  decided to work, volunteer, and live right in her local community where she received her degree in elementary education.  What wows me everyday is how she is able to bring her passion into everything she does.  She works with students with special needs, motivates kids to learn, and believes in the abilities of all her students and co-workers.  She inspired one of her kids to rise above his challenging and poor living environment to apply to a local preparatory high school.  She helped him with his application, bought him some supplies including an interview shirt, and tutored him- both academically and socially.  Needless to say the young  14-year-old got into the school and is doing well in his new learning environment.

This passionate teacher works harder and longer than any other educator I know.  And when she is not working in the classroom, she can easily be found at the local bowling alley coaching her Special Olympics Bowling Team or at a Teacher Leadership Community meeting at Rider University mentoring other teachers from across the state to improve their practice.

Passion can be contagious and I know that as a passionate person myself, I have inspired many people to go out and find success using what they know and can contribute to their community.  I am thankful for the people of my past and those in my present who inspire me with their good works and contributions to others.

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Spending the evening with a group of high achievers from the class of 1986 made me reflect on the way our kids learn today versus how we 40 somethings learned during our school days.  We didn’t have Google, we had encyclopedias, we didn’t surf the web, we went on school trips, we didn’t access on-line databases, we went to the library.  Ben Stein talks about today’s kids being in crisis because they don’t know simple history or geography facts or they don’t value a college degree perhaps like Generation Xers.  Today’s students in middle school, high school and college find ways to gain access to facts without having to apply them, learn them, experience them; they just find them for the moment, use them to complete an assignment and they move on.  Will Hunting a character from the movie Good Will Hunting was one of those students who found facts through just reading about them, but never truly experienced them as his counselor pointed out:

“So if I asked you about art, you’d probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo, you know a lot about him. Life’s work, political aspirations, him and the pope, sexual orientations, the whole works, right? But I’ll bet you can’t tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You’ve never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling; seen that. If I ask you about women, you’d probably give me a syllabus about your personal favorites. You may have even been laid a few times. But you can’t tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy. You’re a tough kid. And I’d ask you about war, you’d probably throw Shakespeare at me, right, “once more unto the breach dear friends.” But you’ve never been near one. You’ve never held your best friend’s head in your lap, watch him gasp his last breath looking to you for help.”

One of the ways students can do more than just learn about facts without truly applying them or experiencing them is through interactive white boards such as SMART.  I have had the opportunity to work with school districts in New Jersey through professional development sessions.  These hands on workshops afford teachers the opportunity to develop the skills to engage students using interactive whiteboards coupled with today’s latest technology tools.  One of presentations, Interactive Teaching in the 21st Century Classroom, challenges teachers to step out of the comfort zone that PowerPoint created several years ago and to find a new way to engage learners where they are today: on Facebook, on Twitter, on Club Penguin, on their cell phones, their iPhones and on Xbox.  SMART Boards give teachers an opportunity to work with diverse students and provide a more interactive interface to engage them.  Learners today expect content to be at their finger tips.  They expect to be able to use touch screen technology, access the Internet at anytime and see images that will help them learn.  They have been accessing these media for some time and teachers need to meet their students where their students live.

Universities are a good place to find professional development opportunities where technology embedded curricula can be introduced, played with and taken home to your district.  Rider University through its Summer Institute for 21st Century Educators gives teachers an opportunity to be exposed to and challenged using today’s cutting edge tools.

So yesterdays high achievers are today’s leaders.  We found ways to learn and this learning has served us well.  What about today’s students?  How can we help them be our leaders of tomorrow, today?

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Working at a School of Education in New Jersey, you meet a lot of interesting people.  First you have the administrative team- the dean, coordinators and office support staff.  Each person has a unique set of skills and personality.  Then, there are the professors who scaffold the curriculum and cultivate the learning.  Finally and probably most importantly, there are the students or candidates for teacher certification.  They come from all walks of life, with baggage, dreams and goals.  One of the important things I have learned as part of the administrative team at this university is that everyone has a story to tell.  And these stories have deep meanings.  Success stories always give me a lift- whether they be inspirational student anecdotes or faculty fictional narratives, I enjoy hearing someone talk about how he or she got to where him or her are today and what he or she hope to accomplish in the future.  I love to here how people decided on a particular career path or why a certain person chose to join a sorority or intramural team.  Love stories are also good for a touchy-feely break from reality.

Two stories stand out to me over the last couple of weeks in particular.  One came from a student who lost her way.  She is the president of the freshman class at a university.  She is bright and eager.  She is always, as Jennifer Nettles in the hit country duo Sugarland sings, looking for “something more.”  This young woman told a story about her passion- to love.  She talked about what it feels like to not be loved, to always be looking for love and to give love.  She talked about a long distance relationship with another undergraduate who goes to school in different state and how Skyping him on a Friday night makes her happy but also keeps her from doing other things a typical 18-year-old undergraduate would like to do.  This rising star talked about how she wants to feel affiliated with something and how she knows that whatever she does in life, it will be big, really big.  But she, a bright, 3.8 grade point average, beautiful young lady felt lost; unsure if she belonged at the university she attended because the others around her wanted different things, had different priorities and did different things- things that she just didn’t want to do.  She looked to escape and find someplace else where she could better fit in and reach her goal to do something big.  Instead of running, this young lady called out for help and she got it from the university family.  Now, with a new major, new on-campus job and new direction, she is back on track.  She told her story and it resonated with the people around her.  Her visual presentation touched her audience and her audience responded.  They understood the story and found its meaning- passion to love.

Later in the month, a friend of mine told me a story about a young man and woman who fell in love.  They just clicked.  It was like magic.  They didn’t fight, they just fit.  But, priorities changed and although the two were in love, they could not be together- their lives had different directions to take.  They could not find a common path and they needed to move apart.  Their connection, although deep, could not move further.  But, although they moved apart physically and emotionally, their spirits still stayed intertwined and their hearts forever felt love.

Both stories have deep meaning for me.  As I work through the personalities of my everyday, manage their intricacies and seek to understand, I realize the impact that the stories they tell have on me.  Whether they be stories like the freshman undergraduate who called out to her universe for help or the story of the two hearts that could not continue to beat as one, I see the deeper meaning of a story that yearns to be told- passion.  Passion can drive decisions, create energy and develop relationships.  Passion is at the root of every story, whether it be sad or happy.  Stories are anthems of strength, snapshots of reality and are embedded with passion.  Listen in, you never know what you might learn from a simple story.

It’s true that no day is perfect.  No thing is perfect.  By nature of being human, no person is perfect.  Yet we have moments that seem flawless.  These “perfect moments” are what we should  treasure.  Personally, I am a perfectionist.  I strive for perfection everyday.  Any task, I expect nothing less than a perfect performance and perfect outcomes.

A friend told me just this evening that we should appreciate the perfect moments, those times that things just flow naturally without barriers or interruptions, and not expect completely perfect days.  I thought about that for a while and realized that she is absolutely right.  Why can’t we be satisfied with perfect moments?  Can we strive for greatness and achieve it despite that fact that little issues come up along the way?  In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins says “The real path to greatness, it turns out, requires simplicity and diligence. It requires clarity, not instant illumination.” So we need to see the perfect moments and realize they are a launching pad to relationship richness, business greatness and self success.  We may not see greatness right away, but we will see those moments that keep us interested and keep us motivated to press on.

Perfect moments may be little glimpses of hope.  They may be small actions.  They may be simple gestures.  No matter what they are, observing them is important and growing with them, essential.  I guess I, like many of us, have to be reminded every so often that it is okay to let myself off the hook and appreciate the perfect moments that I have experienced and achieved in my everyday.  Perhaps a morning sunrise is perfect in my eyes, my actions made someone smile, my presentation impacted a student in a way that I had not anticipated or my workout gave me the results I had hoped.  These are my perfect moments and they give me so much joy and happiness.  And in between these perfect moments are the frustrating moments- the ones in which we put way too much energy.   Moments like the bus not arriving to pick my kids up on time for school, the snow that kept me from an important meeting, the stoplight that malfunctioned outside of work that caused a huge traffic jam or the check out person at Target who rang up the wrong price for toothpaste.  These are moments that didn’t go as plan, make us angry and keep us from remembering the perfect moments we had earlier.  Indeed, this is normal.  No one would fault you for feeling frustrated.  But if we can keep the visualizations of previous”perfection” in our minds, perhaps the frustrations would not be so big.  And the traffic jam not so dramatic.

My daughter’s pre-K teacher, Miss Heidi once said to me, if you start your week with 8 oranges and by the end of the week you have 1 left, you are doing quite well.  And if you drop all 8 oranges in one day, tomorrow’s another day with 8 more oranges.  A late 1990s television show, Ally McBeal, dotes this very clever quote “Sometimes… when you hold out for everything, you walk away with nothing.”

Relish your perfect moments in your relationships, job and life.  They will help you continue on your path toward achieving your most precious goals.

So with all of the challenges facing all of us in some way day to day, it is comforting to know that friendship is there to lift you up and guide you through the ups and downs of life.  And friendship comes in so many different packages.  Take for instance the series of Liberty Mutual pay it forward commercials that show random acts of kindness by people just because they are the right things to do.  Or how about the people who pass you in the hall or on the street that say hello or just smile at you?  How about people who tell you how nice you look today or pay you a compliment that you just weren’t expecting about the work you do?  These are all small and simple acts of friendship- albeit on the surface and from people that we perhaps don’t even know, but they are friendship gestures that we as humans all crave.

Then, there are the friends that seem to know just when to call or write an email.  Those friends give us the strength to continue, no matter how tough the path, long the journey, painful the experience.  These are the living saints that just know because they know; the friendly faces that wink at you when you are down, evoking that last bit of passion left in your gut or the loving smile that beams from a friend who is just looking at you in awe.  Friends are pulling for you.  They are the presidents of your fan club.   We sometimes don’t even know the impression we make on another’s life.  The smile, gaze, wink, compliment, note, gesture- they all go a long way.

And with true friendship comes honesty and unconditional love.  We learn how to be a true friend after many days of middle school teasing, awful high school firsts and collegial thirsty Thursdays.  And when we find friendship, we want it forever.  If we work hard and take care of friendship, nurturing it with time, commitment, respect and love, we can have it forever.  Forrest had his Jenny, Carson had his Ed, Lucy had her Ethel and you have your best friend.  Cherish her and cherish the days you have with her.  Celebrate friendship for the gift it is and the everyday happiness it provides.

Whether they are simple everyday gestures or deep conversations with your favorite friend, friendship is good for the soul.  Friendship can carry you through some of life’s most difficult days.  Never under estimate the power of true friendship and appreciate the people around you who show you they care.

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As assessment coordinator for the School of Education at Rider University, it is exciting to be on the forefront and design team for innovative methods to assess teacher candidates throughout their program.  Today, at the inaugural New Jersey Educational Leadership Summit co-sponsored by the New Jersey Affiliate for the National Council of Professors of Educational Administration (NJ-NCPEA) and The New Jersey Department of Education (NJDOE), well-known leaders and researchers gathered on Rider University’s campus to lead discussions on the protocol and models for teacher and principal performance based assessments.  This topic has been at the forefront of discussion from the state house to the White House.  What makes a good teacher and how do we know?  FOX 29 covered the story tonight and touted Rider’s assessment system as a model system for K-12 districts.  You can see the story here: http://www.myfoxphilly.com/dpp/news/local_news/rider-model-may-help-k-12-teachers.  Take a look at the Trenton Times article as well here: http://www.nj.com/news/times/regional/index.ssf?/base/news-22/1295333108173980.xml&coll=5.