A Hero in American Education

Teaching is not the craft of dispensing information; it is the art of posing problems—often very real problems—that require students to find, evaluate, and present solutions." That's the view of Robert Corrigan '67, an English teacher at Gorham High School in northern New Hamp-shire whose approach to education recently gained national attention when Reader's Digest named him and his wife, fellow teacher Jacquelyn Corrigan, as Heroes in American Education.

"We have never felt like heroes," says Corrigan. "Perhaps we have gone above and beyond the call of duty—as duty is perceived by those who are not teachers. For us—and for many other teachers as well—doing the job means a 60-plus-hour work week when school is in session.

"My job is to prepare students for the next phases of their lives," explains Corrigan, who teaches every Gorham senior. "For all of them, whether they're accelerated college prep, college prep, or vocational-technical students, I believe the best approach is to teach them the critical skills: critical thinking, creative thinking, problem-solving, decision-making, group process, management skills, independent learning, record-keeping, and communication/organization skills."

Reader's Digest cited the Corrigans' extracurricular care—from career counseling to housing homeless students—as part of the reason that only 2.5 percent of Gorham students drop out and that 54 percent of the seniors go on to college. [The couple's own Gorham-schooled son Greg is now at Dartmouth, class of' 92.] Some of Corrigan's concern for his students derives from his own education. "Dartmouth taught me compassion," says the former English major, who admits to having been miserable during much of his junior year of college. "That experience taught me that people can't get deeply involved in learning until they are happy—or satisfied—with who they are and where they're going."