Our Everyday Work
Educators bring life to De La Salle's vision of a good teacher
By Brother Brendan Kneale, FSC,
Jacqueline Tasch, and Terri Wetter

Sue White:
Guiding Students on the Intellectual Journey
The sophomore Honors English class at La Salle High School in Milwaukie, Oregon, studied Charlotte Bronte's classic novel, Jane Eyre, last year. Besides learning something about nineteenth-century English society -- and an eccentric hero named Rochester -- they also discovered a new way of learning.

As class began, their teacher, Sue White, told them there would be no tests and no lectures. Instead, students would participate in an open forum discussion of the novel while Ms. White would sit in the back of the room and award points for their contributions.

At first, students would raise their hands and look to her to call on them. "Don't raise your hands, just talk," student Kristyn Martz recalls Ms. White saying.

"I'm not your leader in this discussion. You need to do this on your own."

Another student, Jane Scrutton, talks about Ms. White's great expectations. "At first, I was very intimidated by her because she pushes you to a level you're not quite sure you can achieve," Jane says. "But, in the end, Ms. White helps you see that you were able to reach a higher level than you thought possible."

Sue White knows that she's challenging her students. "I expect students to work hard," she says, "and I don't back down." Instead, her strategy is to "tell students [her] expectations and help them get there," she says. "You have to keep working with them. You can't let them slip through the cracks. When they start to see that success results from their own hard work, then they catch on. Some of them have never felt that success before, and it's especially gratifying to help them make that connection."