The Student News Site of Westborough High School

The Lobby Observer

The Student News Site of Westborough High School

The Lobby Observer

The Student News Site of Westborough High School

The Lobby Observer

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A Teacher Devoted to Science and Students

By: Sameera Qureshi

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mrs. D’Onofrio, a resident of Leominster, Massachusetts, loves her job as a science teacher.  She has two stepchildren, a son in ninth grade and a daughter in eleventh grade, and two dogs named Sadie and Cosmo.  She enjoys hiking and the outdoors, and also likes to sing.

Before receiving her undergraduate degree from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), Mrs. D’Onofrio went to high school at the Notre Dame Academy in Worcester, where she participated in cross country.  She earned her graduate degree from the Antioch University of New England.  Once she finished college, she spent time in Seattle, Washington.  She began teaching at Westborough High School after spending six years teaching at Holy Name in Worcester.

As a teacher, she believes that it is better to be loved than feared because “it’s a point of life.”  She also feels that her parents have had the greatest influence on her, because they are “willing to grow and change and willing to right wrongs and help others.”  Mrs. D’Onofrio has certain expectations that she looks for and values in her students.  She believes that they must be genuine, hardworking, and always do their personal best, but she still appreciates students who have a sense of humor.  She believes that as a teacher, she does have high expectations, but she still enjoys teaching and is sincere, as she always tries to be fair and take into account the students’ personal lives as well.

Although she enjoys teaching, Mrs. D’Onofrio admits that her job requires her to make a time commitment outside of a regular school day.  She doesn’t like that as a high school teacher, she only sees each student for an hour a day, making it difficult to develop a close relationship with the student.  Despite her high expectations, students love that she is very practical, willing to answer questions, and easy to talk to.

When Mrs. D’Onofrio started teaching at Westborough High School, she was also coaching the Freshman Girls’ Basketball Team, and they never lost a game.  Since she has started teaching here, she has seen that our school expects a lot from students, requiring the teachers to “step up.”  She also thinks it’s great that the school offers a lot of classes, like cooking or engineering, that give useful and basic knowledge that teachers don’t cover in their regular classes.  She believes English and history are useful classes as well, since English lets students gain exposure to literature, and history makes us aware of how we came to be.  However, if she could teach any other subject, she would teach math, since it involves common sense and logic.

Mrs. D’Onofrio has been teaching for fourteen years, but even when she was in high school, she didn’t know that she’d one day be a science teacher.  She chose to teach the high school subject, because she liked the age group of the students, and she believed that it was a “boring” and “dry” subject, so she wanted to try to make it seem less so.  Now, she enjoys her job and loves the time that she spends in the classroom.

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  • S

    sidney bergNov 17, 2015 at 5:33 pm

    This article was interesting to read because I had Ms. Donofrio as a science teacher freshman year so I liked learning more about her. I like how the writer started with some basic information about her in the first paragraph. The journalist did a good job of organizing the article into paragraphs – each paragraph had its own topic. I really like how the writer focused a lot on Ms Donofrio as a teacher. She included how hard she should push her students, what courses she would teach if she didn’t teach science, and what she values in her students. It’s clear that the writer took some time to think of interesting, compelling questions for the interview. I was interested throughout the entire article.

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  • J

    Jessie HarpinJan 22, 2015 at 12:41 pm

    This article is good to see because its good to know that some students appreciate their teachers. also that the teacher takes their time to help their students out when needed.

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