Subject Matter High School
Resume:
COVER LETTER
Larry Hoffner
NYC, NY 10003
ad5eqk@r.postjobfree.com
I am an educator dedicated to excellence in teaching and preparing students for successful careers and responsible citizenship. I adhere to the notion that learning is a social experience that requires interaction, meaningful relationships, and collaboration. Students in my classroom respond to my passion for the subject matter and the engagement of their peers while they are encouraged to seek a sense of purpose. Such students benefit from specific instructions, constant feedback, and a culture of learning that encourages resilience in the face of failure. Teaching has been the most challenging and rewarding profession. I am stimulated by the preparation and presentation and am uniquely poised to truly help another human being every single day.
When a student gets a grade in my class, that student will know why he or she got such a grade and, most important, what steps he or she needs to take in order to improve. This is the essence of my pedagogical approach. Students are encouraged to absorb and synthesize information to establish their voice by making arguments supported by textual evidence. Because writing and thinking are synonymous and complimentary activities, it is essential that students write in a manner that advances an argument supported with reason and evidence.
My teaching philosophy is grounded in the idea that students’ minds are not empty vessels waiting to be filled. Each one of them brings their own brand of genius to my classroom, and my most important job is to discover and empower that genius. I facilitate active participation in a lively classroom, where relevant content is brought to life by meaningful problem solving, and minds are alive with curiosity and creative energy.
The ideal position would demand accountability and responsibility, and would offer a degree of autonomy, collaboration, and consensus building. I work toward creating an environment that fosters a love and a lifetime of learning where students are encouraged to make meaning of their world, to articulate those meanings and to alter them in the face of new information, effective communication and enriching experiences.
The job of the teacher is to help students think through what constitutes a reasonable argument where they are encouraged to wrestle with difficult, controversial, and unfamiliar ideas using analysis and empirical evidence to support positions. The process is simple: students speak and listen carefully. Students write and read closely. I feel gratified when my young scholars show improvement and growth. My pedagogy is grounded in the words of William Butler Yeats: “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” I can identify acutely with the joy of learning!
Students in my class are held to very high expectations. They might feel that it isn’t fair, but over time it becomes intrinsic. They acquire a newfound belief in themselves and they set their own high expectations!
EDUCATION
B.A. Queens College, CUNY, English literature 1969-1973
M.A. New York University, English education 1988-1990
National Endowment for the Humanities, Seminar, Reed College, Portland, Oregon
"Othello and The Tempest: Staging the Other, Acknowledging the Self." 1995
New York Council for the Humanities
"Journeys Real and Imagined: Literature as a Teaching Tool, Purchase College, 1997
New York Council for the Humanities, Bard College, "Teaching China" 1998
National Endowment for the Humanities, Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
"Explorations in Technology and Society: The History of Technology" 1999
National Endowment for the Humanities, University of Wisconsin, River Falls, Wisconsin
"Picturing American Diversity: Cinematic Representations of Ethnic Minorities." 2000
LaGuardia Community College, "The Immigration Experience" 2002
National Endowment for the Humanities, Kansas State University, “Making the Wright Connection,” 2003
National Endowment for the Humanities, Princeton university, seminar: "Language and Thought: Lev Vygotsky" 2004
"Advanced Placement Language and Composition Seminar" Stony Brook University, 2006
National Endowment for the Humanities, University of Illinois, Urbana, Il.
"Chinese Film and Society" 2012
Experience
1988-1993 The High School for the Humanities, Language Arts Teacher: Advanced Placement Courses Language and Literature.
1994-2014 LaGuardia High School for the Arts: Advance Placement, Language and Composition and Literature and Composition.
2001 (Summer): Shanghai International Studies University, Shanghai, China. TESOL English language facilitator for university students and business personnel.
2008 (Summer): Shanghai International Studies University, Shanghai China, TESOL English language facilitator for university students and business personnel.
2015 The College of New Rochelle: College Writing and Composition.
2016 Westchester Community College: Research and Critical Thinking.
2017 Mandl College of Allied Health: College writing and Communication.
2004-2019: The College Board, assessment for the Advanced Placement Language and Composition examination
2014-2019: My recent academic activities have included tutoring students for the SAT's and helping them write their college application essays.
2019: The New Jersey Institute of Technology-Freshman Composition/critical thinking
2020: The New York School-Reading/writing skills, Interpersonal communication.
2023: Saint John’s University-ESL program for students of Italian descent.
As a prolific letter writer, I have included some samples of recently published articles that give insight into my pedagogical philosophy.
Critical Thinking Skills
April 7, 2016 New York Teacher Issue
Educators throughout the country in all disciplines must be alarmed at the dysfunction of our current political discourse where theatrics, contempt and anger have replaced reason and civility. Instead of positions being defended with evidence and sound reasoning, we hear solutions to “problems” that are more suitable to bumper stickers.
Critical thinking skills have traditionally been taught as a process of revision and editing where ideas are supported with evidence and alternative points of view are considered. The contemporary academic student (and teacher) is immersed in the world of social media where the Internet has become the engine of social discourse. The immediacy and anonymity of blogging, texting and Twitter have either replaced or threatened rational deliberation. This Internet technology may be having a deleterious effect on our thinking and it needs to be part of all future academic reform deliberations.
The recent presidential “debates” clearly have shown a need for education to be more than job training as many seem to be suggesting. Education must be a counterweight to social media where sustained concentration is diminished. Social media leads to slipshod thinking that will ultimately undermine democratic values and the processes that enable them to flourish.
Joy of learning
February 5, 2015 New York Teacher Issue
The overemphasis on evaluating teachers with minimal emphasis on helping them will have the unintended consequences of degrading the love and joy of learning that every educator should work to impart to his or her students. When students are tested and teachers are “evaluated” based on the results, education is inevitably reduced to drills or test preparation.
Innate curiosity, the passion for discovery, critical thinking and creativity itself will be stifled with such an academic approach. This is a recipe for conformity and neither innovation nor diversity, which have been the bedrock of American economic and cultural strength since our country’s inception.
We should adhere to the words of Albert Einstein: “It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.”
April 4, 2013 from the New York Times
A Passion for Reading
To the Editor:
Dean Bakopoulos’s essay (“Straight Through the Heart” March 24), on teaching literature, is relevant to educators in all grades and in every discipline. With the emphasis on standardized testing that has infiltrated academia, we run the risk of losing the passion for learning as an end in itself. My love for reading and writing was not the result of theory, analysis or historical background, but it grew out of a visceral love for a story and a character. When I first encountered “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” “Moby-Dick” and “Gulliver’s Travels,” it was “a moment, a snippet of dialogue” and a “flight of lyricism” that exploded in my heart and in my imagination, forever opening the door to the power and possibility of the written word. “Reading as a process of seduction” is the heart of any pedagogy.
The latest published letter in the New York Times 2/25/18
To the Editor:
Naomi Schaefer Riley is a much-needed voice on the issue of technology and education. All too often there is a knee-jerk reaction to the notion that more resources devoted to technology will be beneficial to students. Greater access to technology is certainly needed in schools, but the idea that by itself it will have a positive effect on learning outcomes is absurd. Smartphone and internet technology is not only addictive but also a distraction.
A healthy academic environment requires focus from students on the material being presented. Excessive exposure to screen time and the simplicity of changing websites work like a drug where immediate gratification is emphasized and distraction is the consequence. This is counterproductive to effective learning and teaching.
Excessive screen time has the potential of turning students into passive recipients as opposed to active learners. “Bridging the digital divide” between poor and wealthy kids may be a problem, but the real problem may be the impulse to place screens in front of students without considering the consequences of such exposure.
LARRY HOFFNER, NEW YORK
We Can Change the World
December 12, 2019 New York Teacher
I recently received the following communication from a former student: “Hello, Mr. Hoffner. I hope all is well with you! I was in your Psychology and Literature class in my senior year. I am currently working toward my master’s degree in teaching English at Columbia University. I received my bachelor’s degree from Boston University. Do you have any advice for me as I am starting my career journey to become an English teacher? Thank you.”
I couldn’t connect a face to the name as they have become blurred over the years and my advice was rather generic: “Do what you think is right. Adjust. Learn from your mistakes. Teach from your heart.”
However, this type of communication put my classroom career in a new light. The effect we have on the students in front of us is often unknown. When it becomes known, a pedagogical epiphany arises. Maybe this student could affect others as I presumably affected her, and her students could go on and make a positive contribution in some capacity. This is the potential effect and responsibility that everyone who becomes a teacher has.
We can make a difference and consequently change the world. The novice and the veteran teacher need to hear this; administrators and parents need to hear it as well. Although our role in the culture is often belittled as we are forced to fight for pay, working conditions and general acknowledgment, our influence in the classroom should never be underestimated.
Don’t make Regents optional
December 21, 2023 New York Teacher
Response to news that the New York State Education Department is considering a proposal to make Regents exams optional for high school diplomas:
When any test is made mandatory for graduation, it usually reaches for the lowest common denominator. If scores on such tests are “influenced by a student’s income, cultural differences or other obstacles,” the solution is not to eliminate such tests, but to put resources into those schools where students need the help.
The tests as they are currently constructed are a weak measure of a student’s knowledge, but the solution of making such tests optional is misguided. If anything, the test standards should be raised! Eliminating test requirements is easy and lazy; giving resources to those in need requires a degree of work, money and patience.
Larry Hoffner
Licenses, curriculum-vitae and references are available upon request.
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