Pawling Central School District

We are very proud to feature an article written by Pawling High School sophomore Cesar Lopez. A student in English teacher Spencer Goot's Journalism and Media Studies class, he was inspired to write a profile of ninth grade English teacher Carolyn Herman – an educator who Lopez said has had a profound impact on him.

"She’s one of the teachers who is easy to just talk to and is an interesting person to learn about," he said. "It was an enjoyable assignment because writing is fun for me, especially when it’s about someone interesting like Ms. Herman. She has been all over the place and has done and seen many things.”

Goot, who recommended Lopez for this special assignment, is pleased to feature his work in our eNewsletter.

"I think this is a good example of a student learning the craft of journalism and presenting some basic research and reporting," he said.

Please enjoy this article by Cesar Lopez!

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It all began in an off-grid Minnesota home with little to no access to modern technology. This is where Carolyn Herman, Pawling High School English teacher, spent many of her formative childhood years with her mother, father and brother. She spent time reading books and writing notes. She absorbed the nature that surrounded her and used it to stage scenes out of her imagination. Today she uses her classroom as a stage, exciting her students with the same sense of wonder and possibility she first experienced many years ago.

In addition to being the ninth grade English teacher, Ms. Herman is also the organizer for both the Gay Straight and Allies (GSA) club and literary society, where students can share and socialize around their interest in writing. She is very caring towards her students, shown through her willingness to help them improve inside and outside the classroom. One of her first jobs was in the inner city of Minneapolis, working for Americorps.

"I was helping first-generation college students apply, get into and pay for college,” she tells us. “I would meet with them twice a week after school and harangue them into getting into college.”

An avid reader and writer, Ms. Herman has been interested in literature from a young age. She has said that her writing has been able to take her to many places where her school grades were not. She has published poetry and is open-minded to different cultures and ideas due to her expansive travels in the world. She has traveled to Laos, India, Singapore and elsewhere. In each place, she was able to connect with its culture.

She has had a multitude of achievements and milestones in her life. After growing up in a very rural area whose school size was smaller than most, she graduated from high school and then went on to college at Augsburg University in Minneapolis and grad school at Boston University. It was there that she found out about a program to live in India sponsored by the Rotary International Ambassador Organization. Ms. Herman wanted to go there to help people and because she loves to see new places in the world. She says she chose India because of the post-colonial history.

"I thought it was really interesting that some of the best writers in English – which was a colonial language – were Indian," she said. "The Indian people have made the language their own.”

“Haroun and the Sea of Stories” by Salman Rushdie was especially influential.

In India, she was able to connect with the culture of the people and try to get her students to connect with Western society. She then got her first teaching job in Minneapolis where she taught high school students. She later met and married her husband, Brian Loh, who landed his dream job as a professor of religious studies at Marist College. Ms. Herman began looking for teaching jobs near Marist and eventually found one here in Pawling, where she has been teaching for five years.

Ms. Herman has many hopes and aspirations for the future. Professionally she plans to keep helping students academically and socially through her teaching and her work as a club advisor. Personally, she hopes to buy a house with her husband somewhere in the greater Harlem Valley area. Most importantly, Ms. Herman continues to be a caring, smart and helpful individual to all who enter her classroom. She is excited to continue to teach and lead new generations to a better future where they can help the world to prosper. She knows from her own experience that everyone’s journey of growth is a personal one:

“I believe that giving people answers doesn’t help, but helping people think does.”