Kathleen Pellegrino

Your browser may not support display of this image. Attempting to fill the shoes of one of Phoenixville’s most successful teachers would seem pretty hard, but Mr. Bolig is doing a very good job! During the fall semester Mr. Bolig was a student teacher here, with Ms. Riccardo. In January a job opened up here for a long term substitute replacing Mrs. Dippell, teaching 12th grade English, and Mr. Bolig got the job.

Your browser may not support display of this image. Mr. Bolig stated that being a student teacher was a good way to prepare for becoming an official teacher. He said, “The hardest thing about being a student teacher was the constant running around, grading papers and coming up with new lessons.” A new teacher has to think of his/her own lessons and come up with different ways to teach the class; it’s like starting from scratch. A veteran teacher can draw from his/her experience. There are a lot of differences between being a student teacher and an official teacher. In becoming an official teacher Mr. Bolig is for the most part on his own. He has to watch over the whole classroom, not just the group of students he works with. There is no teacher there to directly help him, and there’s no more supervisor to make sure he’s doing everything correctly. Being a long term sub here created unique challenges for Mr. Bolig to overcome. Some of his students were familiar to him from the fall, but he had to get to know all the rest. He said, “I wish I could’ve started at the beginning of a school year because there’s a good week or two to get used to everything. I jumped into things in the middle of the year, which made things difficult because there was no spare time.”

While growing up, Mr. Bolig lived in Downingtown and he attended Coatesville High School. After graduating from Coatesville High School in 2001, Mr. Bolig attended Penn State University. While he was there he planned to study engineering. During his second year at Penn State his Goshin Jitsu teacher, Sensei Graves, recommended that he should consider teaching as a career plan. Mr. Bolig then became involved with tutoring fellow engineers in their English courses. Working with other students and helping them through school made him realize teaching might actually work out. He said, “I find teaching satisfying because it’s nice knowing that I’m helping students prepare for the real world after high school.” Mr. Bolig transferred to West Chester University to get his Bachelor’s Degree in Secondary Education/ English.

Even with the challenges that teaching brings, Mr. Bolig is very happy with his decision of becoming an English teacher instead of engineering. He said, “I chose English in the end because I feel that engineering and English are actually a lot alike. Most people would think that they’re two completely different things, but I see them as similar.” His favorite thing about teaching is seeing the interaction between students and hearing their different opinions. His number one goal in his teaching career is just to get better at it and find new techniques to help the students do the best they can.

Your browser may not support display of this image.Your browser may not support display of this image.When Mr. Bolig isn’t here teaching he enjoys practicing kendo, which is a modern Japanese martial art of sword-fighting based on traditional Japanese swordsmanship. He practices it in a dojo in West Chester called Ken Wa Kan. He says it’s a lot of fun, but he hasn’t been able to go for a couple of weeks because he bruised a rib practicing. He also enjoys playing video games and reading. His favorite book is The Giver by Lois Lowry. He chose that to be his favorite book because its dark themes relate to the real world and it can bring serious topics to the minds of teenagers. His favorite movie is The Empire Strikes Back. He said that it is his favorite movie because, “It’s just one of those perfect movies, and it has great directing and drama. I thought it flows really well, and it’s rare that the bad guy wins.”

Mr. Bolig is engaged to get married in the summer to a woman named Angie that he met while he was at Penn State. As of right now Mr. Bolig doesn’t have any pets, but once he gets married he and his wife would like to get a kitty which they are going to name Ichiban.

At the conclusion of the 08-09 school year Mr. Bolig hopes to get a permanent job here at PAHS and we hope he does too! Even one of his students, Emma Cordes stated, “He’s the man and anyone is lucky to have him as a teacher.” We wish Mr. Bolig luck and hope to see him back at PAHS next year.