Last night Chris and I ran the monthly Target Teach Parsippany seminar. This program was started approximately one year ago for students at Parsippany and Parsippany Hills High Schools who have shown an interest in becoming teachers, and who have been recommended by their own teachers as potentially-good candidates. The students receive credit for 2 high school courses for spending one period a day working with a mentor teacher as well as attending a monthly seminar which is run like a college methods course. They read books, write papers, make presentations, and share ideas.

It’s a very good program, if time-consuming for the people running it. We started out as a committee of about a dozen former winners of the Parsippany-Troy Hills Distinguished Faculty Award along with the ass’t superintendent of schools. Now the active committee has dwindled to about four people, and we are fairly overworked and stressed out. But the kids involved seem to like the program, and their enthusiasm for teaching has certainly grown. Several juniors have expressed interest in participating in the program next year, but Chris and I are hoping other teachers will pick up some of the workload since she and I are stretched rather thin these days and need a bit of a break.