Alan Sitomer, 1/17/07
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LMU Instructor Named California Teacher of the Year
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Alan Sitomer’s unique approach to teaching literature to high school students helped earn him the title of California Teacher of the Year.
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In Alan Sitomer’s English class at Lynwood High School in Los Angeles, students explore the works of a variety of great writers: Dylan Thomas. Lord Alfred Tennyson. Tupac Shakur. Ice Cube.
Sitomer, also a professor in LMU’s Graduate School of Education, specializes in engaging “reluctant” readers and writers. Making references to popular music in his lectures has allowed him to do just that.
“I use [hip hop and rap] as a tool because it is so immensely effective in the classroom,” Sitomer, says. “The artistry of hip hop and rap … when you explore that with your students and make connections to other works of literature and the arts … lights go on [within students] and it’s wonderful to see.”
But his unique approach to teaching has helped earn Sitomer more than the attention and admiration of his students. He was recently named California’s 2007 Teacher of the Year.
“Mr. Alan” – as his students like to call him – was selected from among thousands of California teachers to receive the prestigious award. He, along with other candidates for the National Teacher of the Year program, will be honored at a White House ceremony this April.
Comparing classic literature to hip-hop lyrics may seem like a stretch to some, but Sitomer says the similarities become clear when the works are examined closely – a task that can be tedious, but that is essential to his success in the classroom.
“I do a lot of work behind the scenes before I get to class to make it work,” he says. “And it’s that preparation that makes it appear seamless and be so effective with my students. But they don’t see the late nights at the desk preparing the day’s lessons.”
Sitomer himself is the author of young adult novels, including Hip Hop High School, as well as Hip-Hop Poetry and the Classics, a text used in classrooms across the country to engage disengaged students.
At LMU, Sitomer teaches a methods course in which he mostly works with Teach for America participants; Teach for America is a program in which applicants to commit to teaching in an inner-city or rural school for two years. Sitomer believes that LMU’s teaching credential program is unparalleled, noting that students in many other schools’ teaching programs do not get the degree of individualized attention and preparation that LMU students do.
“There’s a certain quality to an LMU credential,” he says. “I see students being very well versed in all of the things they need to be well versed in. When you earn a credential from LMU, you step out well prepared in the methodology, the real theory, of what you need to become a successful teacher.”
Though Sitomer admits that teaching in an inner-city high school has its challenges, he insists he wouldn’t change the location of his day job.
“I love teaching at an inner-city high school,” Sitomer says. “The students are great. What they may lack in financial resources they more than make up for in heart. It’s my – not their – good fortune that has me teaching where I do.
“I can honestly say it is undoubtedly the most personally rewarding work I have ever done.”