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LEWISTOWN – Three states. Ten schools. A thousand students. These are just some of the numbers from elementary school teacher Dave Webb’s nearly 30-year career.
It all started back in 1988 when the just-graduated Webb heard about a part-time opening for a gym teacher at St. Aloysius School in Wilkes-Barre.
Since then, he’s taught every subject in every grade from kindergarten to eighth grade in both public and parochial schools in Pennsylvania, Virginia and North Carolina.
“It’s not been a typical career,” said Webb, a Mountain Top native who has been teaching fifth-grade at Sacred Heart School in Lewistown, since 2013. “But it’s given me a much broader scope of education in general.”
Webb’s new book, “Mr. Nomad: Tales of a Traveling Teacher,” examines some of the events in that career, including connections with award-winning authors and Hollywood actors, and also offers ideas and advice for other teachers to use in their classrooms.
A former newspaper journalist, Webb has had some of his lessons and units printed in books and magazines published by The Mailbox, a teacher publication. He’s also published nine books for children and young adults since 1996. He’s used the books to help get students more excited about reading and writing.
“Lately I’ve been publishing their work as much as my own,” he said. “In the spring they receive an anthology of their best papers and we have a book release party with their parents to culminate the project.”
Webb has also published dozens of video podcasts with his students in which they show what they are learning in class, often in creative ways.
“Our most popular recent video is the one where the students are acting out idioms and their meanings,” Webb said. “Teachers from around the world have contacted me saying they use it in their classrooms.”
In 2013, Webb made the switch back to Catholic schools after 15 years due to what he calls an over-reliance on testing.
“We were test-prepping and and data-collecting far too much,” he sais. “There was no time to teach anymore.”
Webb’s new book is available at amazon, barnesandnoble.com, or his website, www.davewebbtheauthor.weebly.com.
On Nov. 5, he will appear at the Fairlane Village Mall in Pottsville with other authors during the annual Family Reading Festival. The event will take place from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.