January 27, 2010

Teacher marks 55 years in Catholic schools

By John Gleason

Frank Sferra has taught in Catholic schools for 55 years—50 of them at J.K. Mullen High School. The length of his service may explain why he often likes to teach from a seated position, even if it is the first class of the day.

The morning of Jan. 20, sitting back in his chair, arm resting on the podium with a slight smile on his lips he quizzes the students of his public speaking class on the topics they’ll be expected to know about for a future competition: the situation in Haiti; baseball players admitting to steroid use; the Tiger Woods scandal. 

If it’s in the news, it’s worthy of Sferra’s attention and, therefore, his students’ attention, too.

A Denver native who attended Regis High School and Regis College, Sferra told the Denver Catholic Register that his philosophy on teaching was formed by both the Jesuits and by the Christian Brothers—the former teaching him to do what he does for the glory of God, the latter reminding him that a teacher’s ministry is one of care and vigilance. 

Sferra said there is something else he’s learned from his more than a half-century as an educator: A desire to help every student reach their full potential.

“Teachers should never take themselves seriously,” he said.  “If that happens, they can’t do what they should be doing as teachers: taking kids from where they are and bringing them as far as they can go.”

True to this advice, in his years as an educator, those who know him say Sferra has helped many kids achieve more than they thought they were capable of. He has taught more students than he can count.  He estimates the number of students who’ve sat in his classroom over the years would number in the tens of thousands.  During his career, Sferra has taught Latin, English, science—even the Old Testament.

“I tell my students I got the job because I was actually around when it was written,” he said with a laugh.

The only child of the owner of a produce company, Sferra grew up on both the west and east sides of Denver before his family settled in Wheat Ridge.  The first in his family to attend college, Sferra’s parents were happy with his choice of career.

 “I think I always wanted to be a teacher,” he said.  “But if that hadn’t happened, part of me thought I could be an actor.  I was very much into theater.”

Foregoing the stage for the classroom, Sferra has helped scores of students plunge into competitive speech and debate in the National Forensic League. He’s coached more than 130 of them to nationals. 

In the classroom, Sferra isn’t the sort of teacher who confines the day to a simple lecture.  Going back to the speech topics, he asks students their opinion on the situation in Haiti, who the  real victims are when a famous athlete admits to using steroids and what the ramifications are to neighborhoods when a dispensary for medical marijuana opens up.

Discussion is free-form with everyone weighing in. Rather than tell a student their answer is wrong, Sferra simply asks, “Why is that?”  He wants them to explore possibilities: to think, to sort out, to examine an answer even if it turns out not to be right. Sometimes a response will make him sit back and chortle, a sound his students call his “evil laugh.” 

“I tell my kids not to make the same mistakes over and over,” he said. “Make new ones. Eventually you’re going to run out of mistakes.”

For Sferra, his long career isn’t about the number of years he’s taught, or how many national championships his students have accumulated, or the honors bestowed on him by the Colorado High School Activities Association, or having Mullen name the library after him.  Rather, it’s about teaching, and more important, why he became a teacher.

You have to love it,” he said waving his hand over the classroom.  “This is a job I love coming to every day.”

Looking over the class, he breaks into his famous “evil laugh” and adds with obvious affection, “Even with a class like this.”