The head of the English department at South Portland High School has been selected as one of six finalists for the Maine Teacher of the Year Award.
A committee made up of colleagues, parents and students earlier this year nominated Susanne MacArthur and in March she attended a banquet in Augusta with the other nominees.
At the end of April a group from the state, including past teachers of the year, spent a day at South Portland High School sitting in on MacArthur’s classes and interviewing students. Following the site visit she was selected as a finalist.
On July 20 MacArthur will travel to Orono to give a demonstrative lesson to 30 graduate students and undergo an interview.
Susanne MacArthur has taught English at South Portland High School for 18 years, but has a much longer history at the school. She attended the high school when her mother began teaching English there in 1956, followed by her father in 1957 as a history teacher. A third generation of English teachers at South Portland High School also teaches down the hall from MacArthur: her youngest son.
MacArthur said she tries to make whatever piece of literature she is teaching to relate to the lives of her students. After all, “if you can’t relate it to their lives, why are you teaching it?” she said.
She uses current events, such as Sept. 11 and the current conflicts, to “create meaning” when she is teaching Shakespeare, such as “Julius Caesar.” She has her students take a Myers-Briggs personality test and prompts them to apply the results to the personality types of one of the characters in the story. She also uses film a lot, she said, because Shakespeare was made to be seen, not read.
MacArthur said she was asked by the principal a year or two ago if she wanted to be nominated for teacher of the year, but declined because she said she did not want to be put ahead of any of her colleagues. But, this year, when a committee of colleagues nominated her, she decided to accept. She said as far as she knows the high school has never nominated someone before.
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