Teaching from the Heart and Soul: The Robert F. Panara Story

Heart and Soul

222 Heart and Soul For more than three decades, I have been teaching a methods course for aspiring teachers in the NTID Master of Science in Secondary Education program. For many of those years there was little research to guide us. What should be emphasized in such a course? In 1990, as part of the Teaching Research Program in the NTID Department of Educational Research and Teacher Education, I surveyed more than a hundred teachers to identify their priorities. The top three areas mentioned were first, the characteristics of effective teachers; second, teaching styles that work best with deaf learners; and finally, aspects of effective communication in the classroom. We conducted a number of studies and found that, like hearing students, deaf students highly value a teacher’s knowledge of the content. They also value teachers who are caring, establish rapport with them, sign clearly, and demonstrate their enjoyment of teaching. Bob Panara was a prime example of a master teacher who had developed these and other important characteristics through intuition and experience. Bob incorporated into his teaching style many concepts we value today. He was a social constructivist long before that theory became popular. He believed that learning should be an interactive experience. It was critical that his students bring their own experiences into the discussions. In discussing his Deaf Studies course, he emphasized the importance of studentcenteredness : “a student reading a short story, novel, or play [should] compare his own deaf experience with the experience of that deaf character in the literary work; and show whether it is true or false, add something of his own experience that parallels that, and maybe try to show how it symbolizes the experience of Everyman also.”1 Similarly, the empowerment he promoted through his teaching reflects Paulo Freire’s critical pedagogy; the self-confidence he developed in his students, further evidenced by their success upon graduation, is the hallmark of Albert Bandura’s work. During all his years growing up, Bob’s son, John, told me one afternoon, he never once heard his father speak negatively about a student or a student’s writing. “His heart just wouldn’t let him do such a thing.” John remembers an article written by Alex Haley, in which he advised, “Find the good—and praise it.”2 When it came to his deaf students, Bob always found a way to do just that. Alan Gifford, a deaf civil engineer who took several courses with Bob in integrated classes with both deaf and hearing students at RIT, remembered that it was always fun to watch the students being mesmerized by Bob’s style of teaching . “He never put anyone down. His impact on me was that he helped me to understand my deaf heritage in a way, which provided me the necessary tools to be assertive in society. He helped me and many others to accept deafness as our silent partner as it is always with us no matter where we go.”3 Alan attributed this attitude instilled in him in Bob’s course to his Heart and Soul 223 224 Teaching from the Heart and Soul success as a construction manager and elected official in the community. Throughout the first year after Shirley had invited me to write his biography, Bob and I had many discussions about how his life influenced his teaching. When baseball season ended in the fall of 2002, we would go to hockey games. The Rochester Americans, an American Hockey League team, were always entertaining . After the games I often had a few questions to discuss with him. With every story he told about his life, I felt our friendship grow stronger. Through the holidays and into the spring, I continued to collect many reminiscences of his family’s heritage, his childhood, and his experiences as a teacher. Shirley, too, had had a fulfilling life. Her independent work as a cataloguer at the Library of Congress and as a librarian at the White Plains School for the Deaf and Rochester School for the Deaf, had led to her own legacy of students who remembered her for inspiring them with a passion for books. She had always enjoyed interacting with the celebrities as well. She was a good friend with Nanette Fabray, who served on NTID’s National Advisory Group for a few years, and when the Panaras picked her up at the airport , they would sometimes take her...