������ý����

Bill Smith '07, a ������ý���� alumnus who teaches social studies at Southern Regional Middle School in Manahawkin, N.J., was named the 2018-19 Ocean County Teacher of the Year.

Describing the honor as “amazing, humbling and an overwhelming feeling of gratitude,” Smith says that he found out he was named Ocean County Teacher of the Year when his superintendent, principal, supervisor and two members of the Ocean County Board of Education surprised him in the middle of his class.

“To share that moment with my students, who were posting it all over social media, and to see how proud they were, it was just really, really cool,” Smith says.

Smith credits his undergraduate experience at ������ý���� for making him the educator he is currently, citing Dr. Michael Curran, teacher education professor, and associate history professors Dr. Brooke Hunter and Dr. Nikki Shepardson, as inspirations.

“I think I got a very quality education at ������ý����," he says. "It really did prepare me for what came next. I entered seamlessly into the teaching profession because of my education experience and my student teaching experience.”

Smith, who was a secondary education and history major and a member of the wrestling team, chose ������ý���� for a few reasons. He was attracted to the close proximity to his home in Hamilton, N.J., and the ability to continue to foster his love of history and teaching that stemmed from childhood. He was also drawn to ������ý����'s exceptional wrestling program under the coaching leadership of Gary Taylor, who's now retired, and John Hangey, who's the current head coach.

“������ý���� was just the perfect place for me, and I loved it,” Smith says.

His grandfather, who Smith affectionally referred to as “Pap,” sparked his love of history by taking him to historic New Jersey battlefields, museums, Washington, D.C., and Gettysburg, Pa. His favorite books growing up were of presidents and battles.

Smith says it was early in his high school career when he decided he wanted to pursue teaching and emulate the same passion that his high school history teacher Doug Martin displayed. Smith did not disappoint, describing his personal teaching style as “engaging and interactive.”

“I try to make history come alive to my students and make school as fun and informative as possible,” Smith says.

The students in his seventh grade class are playing the roles of “detectives” and “historians” as they try to crack the case of what happened to 127 colonists at Roanoke in the 1500s, while his eighth graders are acting as “lawyers,” “witnesses” and “judges” in a fictional trial of Brutus for the murder of Julius Caesar. In another class, his students held a press conference that was set in 1864 before the Civil War ended. Smith picked five students to play roles, including one to act as Abraham Lincoln. (The student dressed up as the former president.) The rest acted as media, asking Lincoln and some of his Cabinet members questions.

Smith says he was amazed at how “articulate and eloquent" his eighth graders were during this session.

“I think that one of my strengths as a teacher is my ability to form a really strong rapport with all of my students, and to see them learn and fall in love with history is all worthwhile,” Smith says. Middle school is “such a formative age where you can still hook every single student into your lessons. You can motivate them and inspire them in such a way that can really shape the road that they are going to go down in their lives.”

Smith is not only invested in his school but education systems and classroom learning environments from other countries, which is what drove him to sign up to join 15 Southern Regional high school students and teacher Vasiliki Matthew in an exchange program to Germany in April 2019, he says.

Yet no matter how far Smith travels, he is indebted to the Lawrenceville campus for his time as a wrestler and with the history and education departments.

“I don’t know if I could calculate or quantify how important my four years and my experiences with those two departments and that wrestling team had on me professionally but also personally,” Smith says. “They say your college years really do shape you, and my years at ������ý���� shaped me into the teacher and person I am today.