September 20, 2023 at 10:07 a.m.
'IMMERSE MYSELF IN THE FAITH'
TE: You have a very extensive and accomplished teaching history, it seems to be part of your DNA.
PG: When you ask if teaching is in my blood, I think it is, simply because my brother and my sister are also teachers. My brother, Matt, is a teacher at Christian Brothers Academy. He’s been there for 40-plus years. My sister is a teacher in the Saratoga Springs public schools and my brother, Mike, is actually a journalist. So we definitely have a lineage of educators in my family. In terms of what drew me to teaching, it started off with coaching, and then coaching got me into schools and then I really found my calling at that point. The answer to the question — Why am I here? — and the answer was to teach.
TE: You taught at Queensbury High School for 25 years, what drew you to this opening?
PG: From Queensbury, after spending 25 years there, I spent four years at Averill Park and one year at Williamsville South High School, which is near Buffalo. I think what did it is, back in 2013, I decided to get my public school administrator certificate. When I got my Certificate of Advanced Study (CAS) in educational leadership, I thought about going into public school administration, but as life goes on I decided to stay teaching. When this position came up, it was interesting to me because I went to Catholic schools, K-through-12. I realized that I was being called back to Catholic education at that point. It was a culmination of factors. One of them was that my oldest son had graduated from college and my younger son was accepted to the Naval Academy and I realized I still have some work to do and some time now that they are off doing their own thing.
TE: How important is the Catholic faith in your life?
PG: My faith was all I knew growing up. My parents were strong believers in Catholic schools and going through St. Mary’s in Ballston Spa and then to Saratoga Central Catholic, those were really important years in my life and they really formed who I am today. I think my faith now, I have reconnected with it through this position because suddenly I have had to immerse myself in the Catholic faith again and it has been great for me personally as well as professionally to have that exposure and that commitment to the church again.
TE: How do you infuse that Catholic identity throughout the school?
PG: At St. Mary’s, they have such a strong tradition of practicing faith on a daily and a weekly basis. Every Monday morning, the entire school goes to Mass. Religion and spirituality are incorporated in every class through every teacher. Every teacher has an opportunity to express their faith to the children in any way that they see fit. The fact of starting a class with a prayer is really important. We start our school day with a large gathering in the great hall and the first thing that happens is a prayer. We gather at the end of the day before dismissal in the great hall and we leave our school day with a prayer. It’s really interlaced throughout the curriculum, throughout the day and just in the atmosphere of the school itself.
TE: How important is having Father Scott VanDerveer there?
PG: Father Scott is an integral member of everything to do with St. Mary’s. He is credited with revitalizing the school as well as the church. I give him all the credit in the world. He brings an intelligence, an energy, a charisma that drew me to the job.
TE: You are a published writer and illustrator. Can you talk about the importance of literature and art in forming well-rounded students?
PG: I am going to rely on my expertise as a teacher to really be a teacher’s principal. One of the things that I am very excited about doing once school gets going here, is to not only learn the culture of the school but to also have a hand in curriculum development. I would love to see us have a very consistent writing program. I would like to bring even some of my Adirondack Studies experience into St. Mary’s (Gormley taught a senior elective at Queensbury High on Adirondack Literature that he conceived and designed). We are doing a lot with regional offsite work. We call Glens Falls our class room and that’s the greater Glens Falls area too, so we would like to actually have the kids out of school learning, not remotely, but learning away from the school. I think those experiential possibilities are just so applicable to a small school like St. Mary’s. In terms of my interest in the arts and writing, to me that’s really what I am interested in and committed to. I am actually very excited in learning more about STREAM, which is our STEM program that includes both art and religion in it. I am really excited to see other interdisciplinary opportunities happen at St. Mary’s.
TE: Can you talk about the after-school opportunities at the school?
PG: We play through the Schenectady CYO in basketball, both girls and boys. We have a 5-6 soccer team right now and in that we play small public schools. Next year, St. Mary’s students will be able to participate with Hudson Falls schools on a modified level; there are many sports over there. That’s something that we saw as a way to give our middle-school students an opportunity to play competitive sports. That is a step in the right direction but our goal is to bring back a full, middle-school modified sports program so we can compete and have all the benefits of having our own team at some point in the future. Sports is only a part of it. We’re a school who believes in encouraging the arts as well; both the visual arts, the music arts, the theater arts, all of those sorts of things are all incorporated in our mission. I believe that sports certainly plays a part, especially at that age. Sports creates not only opportunities to improve physically but they also create another community of people for the students to learn with and play alongside. For us, after COVID, sports took a hit and one of my initiatives is to reinvigorate the sports program and to have it back where it was or better. That’s a goal that we are all working toward.
TE: You have a talent for drawing caricatures. Have you drawn Father Scott yet?
PG: Father Scott keeps asking for a caricature and he’s first on my list. Right now, I am doing a cartoon redesign of the Kerry mascot, the Kerry dog, so I have been working on that. I would like to actually get into some of our art classes and teach a few mini-lessons once we get going.
TE: Do you have a phrase or motto that you fall back on?
PG: I have so many and they come up at all different times. A lot of times I look at the philosophy of (former UCLA basketball coach) John Wooden and I seem to have a lot of his quotes in my head. He is someone who I have read a lot about and read his own books as well so John Wooden is right there when trying to have a quote. I will throw one out there: Success is never final, failure is never fatal. It’s courage that counts.
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