Physical education teacher Mr. Frank Cremonese first came to North Allegheny as a student teacher in 2007. After seeing the strength of the physical education department, he had “always wanted to get back to North Allegheny.” In 2020, he was finally able to do so.

During the few months of his new job, however, the district went fully remote. Cremonese quickly adjusted, organizing a project to give students an opportunity to reach out to teachers that have made a positive impact on their lives. He asked students to fill out an anonymous Google Form with a simple thank-you message and the name of the teacher they are grateful for. 

To date, Cremonese has sent out over 300 emails to teachers to share the messages of thanks.

“For me, teaching is coming in and seeing you guys smile and talk and commemorate,” said Cremonese. “That’s what drives me to get to school and do my job. So when you lose that, what keeps teachers going?”  

The gym teacher’s goal behind communicating students’ gratitude to teachers was to add some positivity to the school culture at a time when spirits are low due to widespread cancellations.

“We’re all looking for bright spots right now,” Cremonese said. 

The project was one of the multiple “link assignments,” as Cremonese calls them, that aim to foster engagement that goes beyond just fulfilling students’ physical exercise requirements. Other link assignments have included helping someone else for 20 minutes and FaceTiming a friend instead of texting. 

To Cremonese, these assignments build life experiences and are perhaps more important than the actual curriculum material itself. 

“In the world that we live in, if there’s something you want to learn, most likely you’ll be able to Google it or go to college and figure those things out, but what you’ll always remember are the experiences,” he said. “I always try to gear [the class] more towards the experience and then circle back to the curriculum.”  

According to Cremonese, the most important factor when creating such learning experiences is the care of the teacher. He believes that oftentimes our favorite classes aren’t distinguished by the material that is taught in them but rather by the people who are teaching them.  The character of a student’s teachers and the experiences they provide in their classrooms have the strongest influence. 

“At the end of the day, you’re not going to remember what you did in class,” Cremonese said. “You’re going to remember the personalities you had for class.”

Cremonese remarked that social and emotional well-being, vital as they are to a person, are often overlooked in today’s bustling society. So, in his teaching, he strives to develop students’ social and emotional health by providing appropriate resources and experiences. 

He continued that, especially now, in a virus-stricken world, bridging connections from student to student and student to teacher, as well as checking for stable mental health, is the most important goal in school. 

“When we’re in this pandemic world, the curriculum is one of my least concerns in the sense of ‘We’re learning about the Karvonen formula. It deals with heart-related fitness,'” he explained. “I’m more worried about having face-to-face contact with somebody.”

In the end, pandemic or not, Cremonese believes that the experiences students have, as well as their social and emotional welfare, should take top priority. 

“The experiences you guys get are going to be worth more than anything else,” he said. “The experiences you can give other people are worth more than anything else.”