43
Costello ends long history at Canfield
Photo
David Costello
By EMILY GIANETTI
David Costello has been teaching at Canfield High School for 35 years, with a reputation as one of the best history teachers the school has to offer. Unfortunately, this year will be his last. He is retiring at the end of the school year.
Mild-mannered and articulate, Costello comes off as the ideal teacher — intelligent and personable, someone that students wouldn’t mind running into outside of school. As he discusses his career, it is clear that he doesn’t view it simply as work.
According to Costello, he wasn’t always that way. Reflecting back on his first few years of teaching, he called himself very “academic-oriented” and said he saw his students as recipients of information. All that changed after he became a more experienced teacher. Things revolved around finding patterns and making connections. To Costello, this may mean teaching about George Washington, but asking how Washington would deal with the Libyan revolution.
“You find things that are hooks that they can understand and appreciate how it affects their lives,” said Costello, calling it a “jump across the spectrum.”
Former students agree.
“Not only is he interested in history, he is interested in developing his students as individuals as well. He’s very interested in gaining our perspective,” said senior Gretchen Scheel.
Costello began teaching at Canfield in 1976, after a professor in college inspired him to go into education.
“I’ve had other jobs that pay, but there’s no payoff like doing something you love and feeling good about it,” he said.
His passion for teaching will make it more difficult for him not to return in September. He likened it to feeling a need to be somewhere but not being able to go.
“I’m going to miss some of the ebb and flow of the day here,” said Costello on how his life will change, “Anybody who leaves something they like requires a little bit of adjustment.”
Canfield has always offered him a special opportunity to teach kids whose parents value education. When he began teaching in the farming community that was Canfield in the mid-1970s, the setting was different, but the students were the same.
“We’ve always had a high percentage of excellent students,” said Costello.
He said all the years he spent teaching at CHS can be summed up in four words.
“It’s been a blessing,” he said.