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One of a Kind by Carole FitzPatrick
“In order to be a good eduacator you have to love what you teach and whom you teach,” believes Babetta Ferris, chairperson of the English Department at Bergen Catholic High School, Oradell. She is also coach of the school’s mock trial team which last year won the county, regional, state and national competitions. “If you don’t care about the knowledge you teach, how will you ever get the students to care about it?”
Whether teaching a class or coaching the mock trial team, Babetta’s first goal is to show why what they are learning is so useful to them, not only in education but for life. In business or other professions, the need to communicate is essential, she tells her students, and whether it is through good public speaking or good written proposals, their ability to communicate will help them to advance in their field.
“I try to create an excitement about learning,” she explained. “education is not confined to brick walls, it should be a lifetime pursuit for them.” Babetta hesitates to use the term “Renaissance an” to the young meant she teaches, but she tried to show them that it is good to know a lot about a lot of things. “It’s good to be curious about things, it’s good to seek to know more. Although they may specialize, they should be exposed to other things.”
abet talk a lot about character, and urges the boys to think about what kind of man they want to be. She encourages responsibility, self-discipline and ethical responsibility. “Each one has special gifts that he is responsible for developing. they respond well to the challenge to develop the whole person to the best of their ability. When students know that a teach career bout them and what they are learning, they will respond positively with greater effort. Because of this, I insist that they think. I do not think for them. I do not give them answers. I believe in the Socratic approach to teaching. I believe the truth lies within you.”
Critical thinking is very important in Babetta’s classroom. She will always entertain a new idea as long as the student can substantiate it. She also believes that learning should be fun, and that students always learn more in an atmosphere of fun.
“If teachers expect excellent in performance from their students, the students will give what is expected,” she remarked, adding that teenagers “need to be identified, need to be empowered, to feel they can do better, that they are good and that they are capable. A teacher’s attitude will do that.”
Babetta certainly disproves the theory *held by some) that because teachers in Catholic schools are paid less they must be inferior teachers. She is certified in both New York and New Jersey, as are almost all the teachers at Bergen Catholic. She is very impressed with the level of commitment of her fellow teachers at B.C.
“I think teaching will be improved with greater accountability,” she remarked, “a measuring tool to assess how well a teacher is doing what he is doing, as happens in other professions. Teachers soul have to earn their rewards, just as others do.”
Ron and raised in Greenwich, Conn., in a large family, Babetta learned early how to deal with human nature. A graduate of Marmount College, she received her master’s from the State University of New York at Albany, and taught English at Troy high School, Tory, N.Y. and at Immaculate Heart Academy, Washington township. she has always been active in school, church and scouting programs. While teaching in Troy, she was a member of a Panel of American Women, an inter-racial and inter-religious group which sought to heal racial tension in the city.
Babetta lives with her husband Jim and three sons, Paul, a senior honor student at Amherst, Mark, a sophomore at St. Lawrence University, and Jonathan, a sophomore at Bergen Catholic.
