Due to the recent birth of English Teacher Mrs. Lonergan’s son, Becton has welcomed a new face to the faculty for the duration of her maternity leave. Mr. Schaefer will be taking over her classes for the first half of the 2016-17 school year. A teacher of over 25 years, he will surely fit right into the Becton staff.

That being said, Mr. Schaefer did not always have aspirations to become an educator. Once graduated from the University of Arizona, he walked out with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. This would definitely come in handy for the prolific career in journalism, which Mr. Schafer had ahead of him. He wrote articles heavily focused on municipal and board of education meetings, with the occasional personality piece thrown into his portfolio. Mr. Schaefer has consistently written for newspapers and magazines such as The Ocean City Sentinel Ledger, Atlantic City Magazine and The Ocean County Reporter. Perhaps most impressive of all, he has published stories while working in the Philadelphia satellite offices of The New York Times.

So what prompted a successful journalist to abruptly change his career? In the words of Mr. Schaefer himself, “Technology was evolving to the point that journalistic jobs lost their future.” While his work in journalism was drawing to a close, Mr. Schaefer could not possibly have imagined the bright future he had ahead of him when he chose to get his masters in education at Saint Peter’s University. Since graduating, Mr. Schaefer has taught all levels of education from K-12, in addition to teaching Composition I and II to freshmen and sophomores in college. Being a member of the State University System, he has been an adjunct professor for 15 years at six New Jersey colleges, in addition to teaching at the City University of New York (CUNY).

Mr. Schaefer has expressed excitement for teaching at Becton this year and admires the well-organized and well-behaved student body. He said, “It’s a progressive suburban school with dedicated staff who show their concern for their students.”

During his free time and days off, Mr. Schaefer practices aerobic fitness, visits federal court and reads.

Still a journalist at heart, the English teacher keeps detailed notes on every single book he reads. Currently, he is exhausting the topic of the founding fathers by reading a plethora of novels and informational texts regarding their ideas and actions.

Mr. Schaefer also visits the SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States) blog frequently, and he urges his students to do the same so that they may go on to be well-informed citizens.