What Inge Pisano remembers from her theater class in college is sitting at the edge of her seat to listen to her professor read excerpts from plays. When she started teaching middle school students years later, she wanted to be as captivating and personable to her students as her theater professor was to her.
"He made all of the students feel so very special," the Reston resident said.
Fairfax County Public Schools recently awarded Pisano as 2003 Teacher of the Year. Pisano, a French teacher at Oakton High School for ten years, received a standing ovation when principal Charles Ostlund informed the school community that she would represent Oakton in the nomination process, according to colleague and math teacher George Hubac.
"She's really a leader," Hubac said. "A leader takes care of his or her own people's needs first before they care for their own needs."
For Pisano, good teaching is supporting students and encouraging them to learn more. Asked to describe her teaching style, Pisano replied that she's organized, energetic, quick-paced, spontaneous and instinctual.
"I'm happy about their successes-- both academic and personal," Pisano said. "I'm just so happy when they're excited by learning."
PISANO GREW UP on the north shore of Chicago with a physician father and a German-speaking mother. Although she didn't start learning French until her junior year at the University of Illinois, she pursued a masters degree in teaching French, with intentions to complete a doctorate and teach at the college level. However, her advisor, impressed by her skills as a teaching assistant, encouraged her to gain some real life experience before starting her doctorate. Pisano had won an outstanding teaching assistant award for her skills.
"That was a message I was doing something right," Pisano said.
But instead of completing her doctorate, life happened. She got married and had children. She and her husband taught in rural Pennsylvania for eight years before moving to northern Virginia.
Prior to Oakton, Pisano taught French part-time at Herndon Middle School, and music part-time at St. Luke's Catholic School in McLean.
Besides her theater professor, Pisano recalled two other teachers who inspired her. A German professor was clear and fair in her grading. A fourth grade teacher wrote on her report card that Pisano could do anything she set her mind to.
"That made me feel good," Pisano said.
WHEN STUDENTS ARE in her classes, Pisano uses offbeat accessories to help them learn. A former student had given her a plastic lobster, which Pisano uses if a student is caught talking in English in her class. For awhile, a rubber chicken hung on a pull-down screen so Pisano could reach it.
"If I feel [a student] is not paying attention, that's when I change the pace...I've learned when to push or pull, when to gently scold or encourage. It's a very individual thing," Pisano said.
Jane Rother, whose daughter takes piano and clarinet lessons from Pisano, said Pisano teaches students not just the material , but a love for the subject.
"Inge is so full of life, creativity. She oozes enthusiasm," Rother said. "With Inge, it's love at first sight."
When Pisano isn't at Oakton spending almost 11 hours every day teaching, planning her lessons and advising, she teaches music, plays clarinet in the Fairfax City Band, and enjoys hiking, traveling, attending symphony concerts and going abroad with students.
Pisano explained that students often come back to give her updates on their lives. Calling herself a teacher of life, not just languages, Pisano is delighted when her students succeed.
"Simply put, I love my students, and I get to know them as people," Pisano wrote as part of her philosophy of education statement for her nomination packet. "I understand their sense of fragility...their need to be accepted...their need to be proud of accomplishments...their need to have accomplishments recognized, and their need to have a safe and loving place in which they can risk beyond reaching their usual limits."