Dan Dooher’s experiences teaching in Japan and learning Japanese helped him shape his feelings about teaching language arts.
Dooher, an eighth-grade language arts teacher at Horizon Middle School and this year’s Horizon Teacher of the Year, spent four years teaching English as a foreign language for grades K-12 in Japan as part of the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program prior to working for Moorhead Area Public Schools. He has been a teacher at Horizon for the past four years.
Dooher believes that once a student has learned the basics in reading and writing it’s important to find a balance between instruction and time for students to explore and imagine in books and through writing.
“My personal experiences living in Japan and learning Japanese certainly influenced this belief,” he said. “I didn’t learn to internalize much Japanese until I began to listen to audio and read copious amounts of text.”
His learning was then amplified when teachers provided him specific feedback to help him continue to improve. His experience learning Japanese helped him realize these same practices are what helped him improve in his native language as well.
Dooher graduated from Saint John’s University and College of Saint Benedicts with a degree in elementary education and middle level English pedagogy. He recently earned his master’s in reading from University of Minnesota Mankato. Prior to becoming a teacher, he worked for the school district’s summer migrant school program for five years and as an environmental educator and land assistant at Saint John’s Arboretum in Collegeville, Minn.
According to Lori Lockhart, principal at Horizon Middle School, Dooher is a life-long learner who is always striving for improvement.
“Mr. Dooher creates opportunities for students both inside and outside of his classroom,” she said. “He is quick to discern his students’ needs and responsive to those needs by creating opportunities and options for his students. The growth and improvement of each student is his intent, and that concern is easily seen and felt by his students and others. ”
Dooher aims to create a motivating environment where students can leave each day feeling successful and driven to improve from whatever their current ability level as a reader or writer.
“Through individual conferences, small and whole class discussion, and brief mini-lessons we maximize the amounts of time we can spend reading, writing, discussing and learning from one another each day,” Dooher said.
Dooher was a 2013 Red River Valley Writing Project Summer Institute participant, he is one of the founding members and current coordinator of the staff book club that now meets monthly to discuss high-interest middle level and young adult literature that students are reading, he serves as Horizon’s English language arts department chair, and he has developed and sustained a classroom library of approximately 2,000 books.
Besides teaching, Dooher is assistant high school cross country coach, a middle school basketball coach and Horizon’s middle distance track coach. In 2012 he was named the Section 8AA Assistant Cross Country Coach of the Year.
“Through my coaching experiences, I feel I’ve been able to build bridges beyond the classroom and influence students in positive ways,” Dooher said. “I love finding students who aren’t involved in activities and helping them find something to join.”
Additionally, Dooher is an advocate of the school and local libraries, which he uses often to help connect students with books.
“Libraries influence communities and provide citizens and students access to books and knowledge that is key to maintaining a free and democratic society,” Dooher said.
According to Lockhart, Dooher is a contributor who makes a difference by getting involved and by creating and sustaining opportunities and ideas. “He makes our school, district and the lives of our students better,” she said.
