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On Tuesday, September 5, the
faculty and staff of Cazenovia Central School
gathered in the high school auditorium for a
general meeting.
Following the introduction of
new staff members Dr. Charles Read, Superintendent
of Cazenovia Schools, took the microphone to
announce the recipient of the district's "Teacher
of the Year Award".
The recipient of the award is
determined by an open balloting process. A
committee, which includes previous recipients of
the award, then meet to discuss each nomination and
select a winner from that group.
While there is usually
anticipation about the announcement, those who have
had the opportunity to work with high school
technology teacher Chris Hurd were not surprised in
the least when his name was announced.
Last year Mr. Hurd, who started
teaching at Cazenovia in 1992, was named the
recipient of the "Educator of the Year Award" by
the Syracuse Technology Club. "Winning the award
from the Technology Club was a terrific honor but
winning this award means a thousand times more
coming from the people I work with each day," Mr.
Hurd said. "It's easy to be an excellent teacher
here because there are so many excellent teachers
to draw from. There's always a place to go to talk
about an idea."
Prior to coming to Cazenovia Mr.
Hurd taught at Fort Anne Central School for three
years. His student teaching experiences offered him
the opportunity to teach at a small school
(Hannibal) and a large school (Liverpool). While he
enjoyed the time he spent at both districts, he
decided that he would prefer a small school
district. He said he enjoys getting to know the
students and the rapport you build with the
students as they move through their high school
years.
"When I first arrived here my
initial thoughts were the kids were really well
behaved and there were a lot of older faculty," Mr.
Hurd said. "Given the number of retirements in the
past couple years that was an accurate assessment.
The trade-off is that now I'm one of the "older"
faculty members. From the beginning people here
have always been nice. New faculty at Cazenovia
never feel like they are on their own. People are
always willing to help."
Mr. Hurd attended Oswego State
where he began his college career as a computer
science major. "I quickly learned that computer
science wasn't for me and saw my roommate who was a
technology major having all kinds of fun playing
with these neat tools and gadgets," he said. "I had
always really been into technology classes but
hadn't really thought much about pursing it in
college."
As a student at Baldwinsville
High School, Mr. Hurd devoured technology classes,
having taken each of the courses offered by the
time he was a freshman. His teacher, Mr. Marty
Collins, said he would give Mr. Hurd independent
study credit if he was willing to teach seniors how
to read a micrometer and use a lathe. "Some of the
seniors were like 'What's with this kid' but I
really enjoyed the experience," he said
While he did not recognize the
teacher fighting to get out at the time, Mr. Hurd
was drawn to teaching even as a child. "I can
remember being in the fifth grade and going to the
library and reading to the little kids," he said.
"When I was 14 I took a summer job as a recreation
assistant at a playground and I loved working with
the children."
As subject areas in schools
continue to change, none has changed at a faster
rate than in the technology area. "I never fathomed
that it could have changed as fast as it has," Mr.
Hurd said. "The area of technology instruction is
changing so fast that one individual can't keep up
with it. You really have to build area's of
expertise and have a team approach to the
instruction."
One of the elements of
technology instruction at Cazenovia that Mr. Hurd
is excited about is the development of "Project
Lead the Way," a pre-engineering sequence of
courses offered which may be taken for college
credit. At present two courses are offered, Digital
Electronics" and "DDP". Next year two more classes
are scheduled to be offered. One of them is titled
"Computer Integrated Manufacturing and will teach
students to develop a computer drawing of a
product, how to plan for the product's development,
followed by setting up a robot to build the model.
The second course to be offered next year is titled
"Principles of Engineering."
Mr. Hurd said at present there
are two sections of Digital Electronics and three
full sections of Introduction to Engineering
Design. The transition in technology instruction
has had an effect on the type of students who are
enrolling in those classes. "Technology used to be
really popular with hands on type students but now
we are getting a much wider range of students
involved in technology classes and everyone gains
by that kind of variety.
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