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WA Ghostwriter

The student news site of Westford Academy

WA Ghostwriter

The student news site of Westford Academy

WA Ghostwriter

Meet Mr. Martell

By Neil Sharma & Ethan Walshe
Staff Writers

Q: What drew you to WA?
A: A number of things, I did some student teaching here about five years ago. I really like the ethic of the students here, the desire to learn, and the quality of the staff and administration is second to none. And plus I live very local which is nice.

Q: How long have you taught this subject for?
A: This is my sixth year teaching history. I did about six months of permanent subbing my first year, and then I taught at Lowell High for four years, and now I’m here. But there is so much to teach in history, it’s so broad.

Q: What college or colleges did you attend?
A: I’ve attended Fitchburg State College, and that’s the only one I’ve ever gone to. And I did my Masters, Undergraduate, and all my work done through Fitchburg State. It’s a great teaching college.

Michael Martell looks right at home in his classroom
Q: Were you always interested in Social Studies?
A: Yeah, History was my favorite subject in high school. I took my course with Mr. Laman from Chelmsford High, best lecturer I ever had. He could tell such a great story that we could just sit there and it would be like watching a story. He was so good at telling the stories of history and that’s what drew me in.

Q: What is your teaching Ethic?
A: My biggest concern with students is making they become successful members of society and I want them to be able to teach themselves to learn. The hardest thing is when you get out of high school and you can’t figure something out, so that you have to call for help. I would like to get most of my students to a point where they will know how to do most things on their own from writing a check to researching at the National Archives, primary sources and analyzing artifacts, something as complex as that compared to something as easy as writing a check or figuring out how to register your car or go take a license test something you guys do all the time now.

Q: What words come to mind when describing the ideal student?
A: Desire, desire to learn, drive, respect, respect for education, respect for other students. Now a day it’s so important that students respect each other and respect each other’s beliefs, especially in a world where community is so broad. It use to be that you would only know the people from Westford, a hundred years ago you might know people from Lowell and Chelmsford. But now it is so easy to travel to get to other places, to communicate online, things like that. Respect is the most important thing a student can learn.

Q: What is your favorite topic to teach in Social Studies?
A: There is like four really, I like artifact based history, like actual primary sources. You can look at any period of history and study books on it, but actually finding artifacts, a piece of history. I had a student bring in a piece of the Berlin Wall two years ago, and it was really cool. I mean it’s not the most fascinating thing to look at but it is a part of history. I really like studying World War II military history. I really enjoy Egyptian history. And I really like to look at how religion has played a role in world culture and world development. I mean since the beginning of time people have always looked for some sort of outside force, whether it was Mother Earth worship, worshiping the ancestors, Hindu, Buddhism, Taoism, and Daoism. All of these different religions have existed since the beginning of time, not all of them but some sort of religion has existed since the beginning of time, and that search for, the inner self, what’s our purpose here. I think it’s really cool part of history because it drives so many political decisions.

Q: Do you personally have any artifacts?
A: I do, I have some pretty cool stuff. I have an entirely signed 1952 Red Sox baseball signed by the whole team. I also have an economic report signed by John F. Kennedy. I have a collection of Adam Smith’s books, they’re first editions, but not signed, but they are still very hard to find a copy of his books World of Nations. Its neat stuff


Q: What are some of your goals or main goals?
A: In my classroom? Like I said before it’s tied in right in with my ethics. I want the students to become their own learners. I do a lot of student centered learning. I give them the tools, the artifacts, the pictures, the documents, the movies whatever the case might be or whatever the primary source may be. You give them that and you tell me what happened, figure it out. What can we tell about history from these objects or these sources and that would be my number one goal of the year, to get the students to learn that on their own for themselves.

Q: Do you think you make a difference in student’s education?
A: I hope so, I mean it’s kind of one of the rewarding factors of being a teacher is that you helped a student to graduate or stay in school or help them understand something. I also work in the Alt. Ed. Program, the kids that I have down there sometimes the direction that they need isn’t always educational, and you got to be there to support them for that. Sometimes that can be real rewarding. My first year teaching I had a student who was very, very poor, I knew she was unbelievably poor, and at the end of the year she still got money to buy me a hydrangea plant because it was my first year teaching. I knew it meant a lot to her and I still have it growing in my first front yard, stuff like that is kind of neat.

Q: Would you like more honors programs for Social Studies that were offered to freshmen, because right now freshmen aren’t offered an honors program?
A: That’s not something I have an opinion on because I don’t know much about it. A better person to ask about that would be Mrs. Porter.

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