I am a third generation teacher, although not necessarily by design. As an indifferent undergraduate student and potential teacher, I found I loved learning, but did not like education. The one thing I remember most clearly from a required English methods course is this: according to the senior faculty member, I "should NOT become a teacher."
Regardless, I began teaching that next fall in a remote ranching community in the Sandhills of Nebraska. I loved it. I stayed there four years, gaining a solid education in riding horses; in herding, branding, playing midwife and cursing cows; and in Western, rural realities. My students probably learned much less, but we struggled together to understand their world which was being turned upside down by the nascent farm crisis.
In 1982, I returned to graduate school, finished a Master's Degree in literature, and returned to teaching. After three more years of high school teaching, I ignored the advice of friends and quit my day job, teaching instead night classes at the local community college on a part-time basis. After a wonderful year of having my days free to read, to talk, and to eat leisurely breakfasts with my wife, I took a full-time job at Jackson Community College (JCC) in Jackson, Michigan. I have been here ever since.
During my ten years at JCC, I have primarily taught Freshman Composition and Humanities courses. Early on, I was tapped to chair the Department for Collaborative Learning and Teaching, a department created to disseminate information about computer-mediated learning environments and active pedagogy. Currently, I work part-time as JCC's faculty developer. I work primarily with part-time faculty, serving as an advocate, a resource, a sounding board, and a workshop designer.
As an English teacher and faculty developer, I have been influenced by the work of Ira Shor and Stephen Brookfield, although I cannot say I have been nearly as successful in nurturing critical thinking or pedagogy in my classes or workshops as I would like to. I am still learning and struggling.
I am fascinated by and dabble in graphic arts and website design, read nature writing whenever I can get it, and spend as much time as I can riding my mountain bike. Although a Midwesterner by birth, I am a Westerner at heart, preferring the arid and rocky beauty of the mountains of Colorado and Wyoming.
I am married, and have three rapidly growing children; Samuel, seven, an old soul like me; Laurie, five, feisty and irrepressible; and Thomas, 19 months, who always gets his way. Deborah, my wife--creative, artistic, and organized--keeps us all honest.
Email: Gary_Cale@jackson.cc.mi.us
ACE Student:Cale
Contact: thea@chicago1.nl.edu
