The Doctor is in
I entered college as an engineering major. Supposedly always good in math and science, that seemed to be the direction I should be headed. Well, that lasted just one year. With a grade-point average in the low 2s, I decided to declare myself undecided in my sophomore year. I explored both education and psychology as possible careers. I liked the courses that involved both majors. I might have been influenced by the fact that one of my sisters had a career in education and my other sister was a social worker.
Needless to say, I managed to survive my sophomore year and brought my average up a little.
It was in my junior year that things changed dramatically. A friend of mine, who was pursuing a major in education, told me about this great course offered by a Dr. Littky. He 
was a professor in the education department. This course if you were accepted in it was more of an independent study of education. You would be allowed to work in a school district for 4 days a week as an observer. In my case, it was at the Middle Island Middle School (now called Longwood Middle School), which at the time was doing split sessions with the high school as the new middle school was being built.
I mostly got to team up with 4 6th grade teachers as they were creating this new school. It was awesome. Dr. Littky encouraged us to help them create the school. I learned a lot, and also shared a lot. I suggested a new reading idea, “Hooked on Books” and became well known with the teachers. That first semester I spent a lot of time with a 7th grade English teacher in addition to traveling between the four 6th grade teachers.
The next semester I was lucky to get into Dr. Littky’s class again and again worked at Middle Island, mainly with the sixth grade. When it came time for me to do student teaching, Middle Island continued to be my school district and Dennis (Dr. Littky) was to 
be my supervisor. I got to student teach with one of the four sixth grade teachers, Liala Strotman. It was a busy year. I was more annoyed by the fact that I still only could be there 4 days a week, due to a reading course I had to take back at Stony Brook.
I graduated from college with a dual major in Education/Psychology. Dennis left the university to start a new middle school in the Shoreham-Wading River District. I applied there to teach, but he wouldn’t hire me, due to my lack of teaching experience; since he was starting a brand new school, he needed those experienced teachers to get it working. But I was not forgotten.
The following year, after helping out in the SWR district as an administrative aide to Dr. Littky for a month in January and working as a permanent substitute in the Three Village School district for half a year, I was hired by Dennis to be a 6th-grade teacher in the newly merged Shoreham and Wading River district’s Middle School.
Dennis was my mentor. He allowed me to explore who I was and how I wanted to teach. The journals that he made us write during our Stony Brook days inspired me to continue writing throughout my teaching career.
Whenever I had a problem that I went to him with, he wouldn’t give me the solution, but threw it back at me in a caring way to make me think about how to solve the issue myself. He allowed me to be creative in my approach to teaching and kids. I owe a lot of who I am as a teacher to Dennis.
He eventually left the Middle School to become a famous education innovator. I moved on from the middle school to the elementary school to explore different ways of working with 
kids. I teamed up with Bill Silver who became one of my closest friends, my kindred spirit if you will. Bill continued the kind of encouragement that I had received from Dennis. And still does to this day.
There are times in your life where you can say, this was the turning point of my life. Mine, at least as a teacher, is easy to pick out.
It all started the day the Doctor was in.
