April 6, 2018 at 1:53 p.m.
PROFILE
Teacher muses on education and faith
That advice works well with the many hats Mr. Sgambelluri wears, most notably in his role as an adjunct professor at The College of Saint Rose in Albany.
Mr. Sgambelluri, who's 65, teaches courses in education, educational psychology and classroom management. He also supervises future teachers during their student teaching.
After serving as a teacher and administrator at several schools within the Albany city limits, he "retired" to take on the position at Saint Rose.
"I do subcontracting work for three different BOCES in the area, too," he told The Evangelist, referring to the Boards of Cooperative Educational Services that provide career and technical programs for high school students, services for students with disabilities and literacy programs and job training for adults.
Through BOCES, Mr. Sgambelluri leads courses on various topics to future educators, administrators and parents, from classroom management to team-building, inclusivity and violence prevention.
Parental guidance
He especially enjoys heading up a program for parents that covers a dozen topics, including building a child's self-esteem, single parenting and working with the child's teachers. Participating parents pick three or four topics; then Mr. Sgambelluri spends 90 minutes discussing them.
"I tell parents all the time that the number-one resource is the teacher," he noted. "My goal is to build a network where parents can call other parents."
Parents assume the educational system hasn't changed since they were children, Mr. Sgambelluri said, but "education isn't one-size-fits-all" anymore.
The teacher has lived in Albany nearly all of his life. Growing up in the city's South End, he attended St. John's Elementary School and Albany High, then SUNY-Brockport. He earned two master's degrees at The University at Albany and, right after his graduation in 1972, a teaching job at William S. Hackett Middle School. Back then, he taught health and physical education.
Several teaching positions later, Mr. Sgambelluri switched to administration. In 1995, he became principal at Public School 26.
Team-teaching
"Educating children," he said, "is all about relationships. When I was an administrator, I always encouraged my staff to talk to one another. I always told my staff, 'I'm walking with you, not ahead of you.'"
Mr. Sgambelluri believes that teachers and administrators have to work together. If a teacher has a problem with a child, he said, then another teacher is probably having the same problem. Teachers should be able to use one another as resources, finding out what works and what doesn't in terms of understanding a specific child's needs.
"Love the sinner, hate the sin," he explained. "Find out what's causing the issue and address the issue.
"I was always big on choices. You hear a million times that 'people make bad choices; they aren't bad people.' I want to know why."
Although most of his professional experience is in the public school system, Mr. Sgambelluri admires Catholic schools. He and his wife, Judy, sent their children, Steven and Melissa, to Holy Cross School (now closed), Bishop Maginn High School and The College of Saint Rose, all in Albany.
Steven is now the middle-school principal at LaSalle Institute in Troy, while Melissa works in the music industry.
God in school
"My wife and I both decided we wanted them to go to Catholic schools for God's presence," Mr. Sgambelluri said. "Catholic schools do a good job in building character and instilling the sense of a higher figure.
"I have a deep faith and I will bring it up," he said, noting that the faith of children often surprises him.
The teacher noted that there's a push in schools today for inclusivity and awareness of people's individual needs. "We all have some kind of disability; we all have issues. To be able to forgive people's shortcomings and, [in teaching], to focus on the whole child, is the most important thing," he told The Evangelist.
Mr. Sgambelluri believes people today are at a crossroads between what they learned while growing up and what is actually right and just.
"Jesus taught us that everyone is a brother," he said. "Jesus accepted everyone into His life. There's no reason we can't do that."[[In-content Ad]]
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