Profiles in Teaching – Phyllis Bolger

[FULL STORY]

Many of Newman’s faculty and staff have had interesting jobs before coming to the School, but only Phyllis Bolger can say that that she was a nun and worked for the FBI. Of course, teaching was her true calling, and she has been teaching English and working in the Upper School ARL Office for more than 28 years. We sat down with Bolger to hear about her career and time at Newman firsthand.

When Bolger first came to Newman, the School was a different place, yet the same. “When I first came here, Newman was a very structured yet open collegial system. It was structured for the kids – they were well behaved with their collared shirts and their khaki shorts. No tennis shoes, no flip-flops. And the girls were always well dressed. So everything was a little stricter, yet there was openness and a collegiality with the headmaster. Seniors took a minimum of four classes. Many had taken AP classes or advanced classes already, so they had the required credits to graduate. But it was an open campus for seniors. They walked in and out, and it was never any problem,” she said.

After she graduated from Nicholls State, Bolger had some teaching experience, but she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do with her life. “Nixon was president and there was a wage-price job freeze nationally. The only jobs that were hiring were for teachers and law enforcement. I was just out of school and trying to decide what to do, and I didn’t want to be a teacher while I was trying to decide what to do, because I knew how demanding it was to teach. So I applied with the FBI; it took me about six months to get the job but I got it,” said Bolger.

“I was part of the unit that gathered national crime statistics and entered the data onto computers. I then programmed computers to store the data and display the data whenever the FBI wanted a report. The FBI sent me to IBM programming school to learn how to do this. It was valuable training that I still use today. I realized that I missed teaching, so I started teaching at night and doing volunteer work. I was happy to return to teaching after my 2 ½ years there.”

One of her first and fondest memories at the school was of Teddy Cotonio, Headmaster of the School from 1976 – 86. “Teddy Cotonio walk would up and down the hall with his hammer and his posters that were framed. You see this poster art all over this place – that was Teddy Cotonio,” she said. “He was like a little Henry the 8th. In fact, the Henry XIV knocker that we have on the English Department door was on his door. Sometimes while he was doing that he would come and sit in on a class and sit in the back – but it wasn’t to police the class – he was eminently interested in what we were doing. He would call these big meetings with every corner of the School represented, and he wanted to hear what people thought before he made any changes. And he was truly, truly a good person. He loved children.”

Times have changed since then, but to Bolger, many of the changes are positive. When asked what challenges face current students, she turns the question around, and says that educators have to prepare the students for anything in an ever-changing world. “It’s our job to let kids know how smart they are and how much potential they have, because so many jobs out there haven’t been created yet. There is a whole world out there that is expanding for them,” she says.

For new teachers coming into the profession, Bolger suggests a simple if difficult strategy. She says, “Be prepared to eat a lot of humble pie. Throw in some Pepto Bismol. Be willing to say I’m sorry. Don’t look to give blame, take the blame. Then as soon as the child does better, congratulate them, buy them a cupcake, call their parents and congratulate them and say, ‘Look what you’ve done; you’ve raised a child who can do this, this, and this.’”

When she retires, Bolger’s whole world view will change. For the first time in decades, she will have “a life that isn’t centered around my day job. For years, I’ve gotten up at four o’clock and graded papers and done my paperwork. Now I’ll be able to sleep maybe till seven! But then I will also have an hour or two where I can read a book. And I’ll do it without thinking, ‘How can I teach this thing?’ I will also do some fishing. My dad taught me how to fish, and I’d like to take my grandson fishing.”

In the end, she hopes that her legacy will show that it is not only possible to teach children with learning differences, but that those same students can go on to do great things. She says, “I hope that I have educated faculty, kids, and parents that the kids who have learning differences are really very smart people. If they can turn around how they learn, compensate how they learn, they will become some of the best students we have. These are some of our best students. They have big hearts; they understand the work ethic that one must have to understand the material, and walk through it, and own it.”

Countless students who have learned with Bolger understand her hard work and dedication to turning struggling students into success stories. They and the Newman community wish her well. She should take some time to enjoy a good book without formulating a lesson plan and catch some fish with her grandson.