Cedar Grove Math Instructor David Coster Named NJEA Essex County Teacher of Year – TAPinto.net

CEDAR GROVE, NJ — David Coster, a math and engineering teacher at Cedar Grove High School, is entering his 21st season in education, but he says he still has as much enthusiasm for what he does as he did in Year One.

“It still feels like my first year,” Coster said. “I smile on my commute to work. I don’t know how many people smile on their morning commute, but I do.”

That enthusiasm is one of the traits that recently was rewarded when Coster was honored with the New Jersey Education Association’s Essex County Teacher of the Year Award.

“This honor recognizes the positive impact that each of these teachers has on our students and their communities. They are involved beyond their classrooms and are key to the changes we want to applaud,” NJEA Vice-President Sean M. Spiller said.

Coster called the award “a sum of my experiences. Multiple times I was citing people who helped me along the way. Good teachers are made, not born. Teachers need a lot of support to hone this craft.”

A stint earlier in his career as an administrator only reinforced for Coster that he belonged in the classroom, not in an administrative office.

“I started teaching in Basking Ridge,” Coster said, “and from there I moved to Madison High School teaching math, then to Cedar Grove as math and science supervisor for two years. Then I got called back to Madison as a vice-president for two years, and that really solidified the fact that I did not like administration at all. My wife was all for me going back into classroom.”

When a teaching position opened up in Cedar Grove High School, Coster was only too happy to get back in front of students on a daily basis.

“I have been extremely fortunate to be the recipient of incredible support from the administration, my colleagues, the board of education, the Cedar Grove community, and most importantly, my students,” Coster said. “Without each and every one of these groups supporting innovation at Cedar Grove High School, I would not have received county Teacher of the Year. This is really a community achievement.”

Throughout his career, Coster, a graduate of Rowan University, pursued a variety of opportunities to provide additional support to his colleagues. These opportunities include presenting at AMTNJ conferences, serving as a state mentor for new teaching staff, contributing to the Essex County Curriculum and Instruction Roundtable, assisting on district QSAC and DAC committees, serving on the Northern New Jersey Math Supervisors’ Roundtable, contributing to the New Jersey High School Reform Consortium, and presenting many in-district professional development workshops.

Coster also serves as advisor to the 3-D Printing Club, the Robotics Club, and co-advisor for the Class of 2021. He said, “I am grateful for the opportunities afforded to him by this greatest of professions. I teach because I enjoy learning from my students. While I’m demystifying mathematical procedures and engineering concepts for them, my students are teaching me about compassion, kindness, and hope.”

Last spring, the day that Coster found out that in-school learning would be suspended for the rest of the academic year because of the COVID-19 pandemic, he shared some emotional moments with his own child.

“When the call was made to shut schools in May, I was very upset,” Coster said. “I really had a mourning period for rest of the school year; I was not going to work with my seniors anymore. I started new courses this year, and I couldn’t see them through because they were hands-on robotics courses. I cried with my daughter over this.”

Cedar Grove schools will begin the 2020-2021 school year in an all-virtual learning setting, so the doors to the classrooms remain closed.

“Looking at my classroom, this is heartbreaking for them. I am not able to go back in the classroom yet,” Coster said while speaking from his empty classroom the last week of August. “I am really going to miss the kids and look forward to the day we can get back to school safely. I think every teacher feels both ways. You could not last in this job if you didn’t love working with kids. We didn’t get into this job to teach remotely. All of my training is centered on this classroom room I am in right now. There’s a reason we structure school the way we do, because we think this (being in the classroom) is the best way for kids. I love working with my kids in my class. You would be hard-pressed to find a teacher who does not want to be in the classroom.”

Coster prepared this message about how much impact effective teaching can have on students:

“Turn on the local news or pull up your favorite news app on your phone and you will see countless stories of war, global warming, cyber terrorism, pandemics, and unmitigated violence. Sometimes the world appears to be on fire. We try to make sense of the senseless and look for answers only to find none. However, as a perpetual optimist I see each problem as an opportunity for innovation. And as a teacher, I know where to find the solutions we desperately need. I’ve seen glimpses of the answers in the minds of my students. I’ve seen hope in the resilience of their spirit. I see my peers, in this most noble of professions, as the ones who will unlock the hidden potential of the next generation.

“Every innovation, every vaccine, every treaty, and every safeguard in this world was developed by a person who was once a student sitting in front of a teacher. A teacher taught them to read, write, explore, take chances, learn from their mistakes, and pick themselves up when they fall. Education is the most important resource we have on this planet. I am proud to be a teacher who has been given the opportunity to inspire students who are much smarter, bolder, and more creative than I am. Someone who will do great things for our world and, potentially, inspire the next generation of students.”