We pass by teachers every day as we scram to go to each class during passing period, but how well do we know the teachers that spend so much time us within this wonderful, diverse place we call James Logan. Here, we take a look into an interesting Colt’s life who’s been teaching here for 14 years and counting, Ms. Erin Dal Porto.
“I have been a teacher at Logan since the fall of 2004…I have taught many different subjects and helped out many different departments,” Dal Porto said. “I’ve worked with English, Social Studies, Math, Science, and Ethnic Studies in many different ways.”
Dal Porto is an experienced teacher with a varied and diverse background in many subjects. She began teaching to fill a need.
“When I graduated from college there was a school (not a public school), and they needed teachers. I found that I liked the job and I was good at it” Dal Porto said.
Dal Porto’s day differs from many other teachers. She doesn’t spend her time in one room. She doesn’t cover one subject. Dal Porto moves around and does a great many more things than one might expect.
“Right now I teach fewer periods. I’m teaching study skills, and then I go out into classrooms and help students,” Dal Porto said. “But I’ve also taught all the subjects in small groups, where I teach all the exact same things that every other student is learning.”
Dal Porto has had many experiences at Logan, but her most favorite experience would be when she had her students made children’s books for elementary kids with disabilities at Searles Elementary school.
“I joined up with one of my colleagues, Mr. Smith, and we asked the parents (of students with disabilities from Searles Elementary) to fill out a questionnaire about the student and then we brought the questionnaires back and my students made children’s books specifically for these kids,” Dal Porto said.
Showing these children books with people like them as the characters was a goal of the project, part of a disability awareness unit.
“If you look in children’s books, you don’t see kids with disabilities that are there in that banal way, where they’re just there,” Dal Porto said. “They are existing in the world with the rest of us.”
Often times children with disabilities are usually omitted from children’s books, but if they are included as characters, “it’s on purpose and so we changed that. Then we took the books over to Searles and my students (who made the books) read them to the students who it was written for,” Dal Porto said.
Dal Porto also commented about the term “grit,” and how it should be applied in everyday life.
“Grit is that ability to realize that things don’t come easily, you have to work hard and you have to experience some level of failure and be able to come back from it,” Dal Porto said.
“To be able to have a setback, and being able to continue to work past the setback, to me, is grit.”
In addition to being a teacher, Dal Porto also plays a big role as the mother to her wonderful daughter Ella.
“We have this thing called mother-daughter book club and we listen to audiobooks,” Dal Porto said.
Not only does she listen to audiobooks with her daughter, but they also are involved with the Girl Scouts. She also enjoys activities with her daughter and her husband, including launching rockets.
“It started mostly with my husband and my daughter, but then I got into it,” Dal Porto said. “There’s this club called LUNAR (Livermore Unit of the National Rocketry Association). We build model rockets in this cattle ranch. People show up from all over the bay area and blast off these giant rockets.” said Dal Porto.
Dal Porto also tries to find time to attend a couple of musical concerts a year, specifically Punk shows, which have been a big part of her life. She even had an instrumental version of a punk classic playing as her bridesmaids walked down the aisle.
Dal Porto also discussed something that applies to not only her but to most teachers – perception. The way that students view their teachers.
“I think it surprises people that students tend to think that I’m all business. I’m really not, just the idea that teachers are people too,” Dal Porto said.
As not only a teacher but a mother and wife, Dal Porto says that the philosophy of her life is from a fortune cookie.
“‘Be prepared to modify your plans,’ because you always have to be ready for things to not go the way you expected them to,” Dal Porto said. “I always believe a face to face conversation goes a long way because we communicate through devices so often that sometimes our messages and our intentions get lost.”
