By Angela Marshall
After more than three decades as a teacher and years of reviewing other's books, Sandel addressed a topic she felt has been long neglected.
In "Personal Qualities of a Language Arts Teacher," Lenore leads some of America's best-known educators to share what it takes to be a quality teacher.
She hopes the volume will be used as a supplemental text at colleges across the country.
Lenore earned her bachelor's degree at Hunter College in 1943 and wishes she had been handed the information contained in her book before performing her student teaching.
The book is a collection of qualities Lenore believes every teacher should employ in the classroom. The qualities were selected and explained by educators from around the country.
Educator Judith A. Sykes chose the quality "Guide."
"The word 'guide' best exemplifies my idea of the successful teacher or teaching experience," she wrote. "To guide means to be a facilitator, leader and critical friend. On a journey, a guide leads his or her followers, but allows them to embrace their own discoveries along the way. A guide cares for his or her followers, forging paths and providing maps to the successful completion of journeys. A guide helps each one journey at his or her own pace and style, shedding light in areas of uncertainty."
In the book's introduction, Lenore quotes the U.S. Department of Education Report 2000, which promises, "There will be a talented, dedicated and well-prepared teacher in every classroom."
Lenore does not believe this is possible without recognizing that teachers are people and need to be given the freedom to explore their own strengths in the classroom.
"The important thing here is that the qualities emanating from each teacher's self-attitude, feelings, perspectives, behaviors, and initiatives do affect classroom relationships and teaching styles," Lenore wrote in the book's introduction.
Following her graduation from Hunter, Lenore married Leonard Sandel, who was in the service for World War II. While her husband was serving the country, Lenore took her first teaching position in at a North Carolina nursery school. Because she was the only one with a bachelor's degree, they made her head teacher.
The Sandels settled in Rockville Centre, where Leonard would later serve as mayor, in 1946 and Lenore soon opened a nursery school in their home. Later she began substitute teaching in both the Rockville Centre and Lynbrook school districts. Soon she was pursuing higher education at Hofstra University, earning a master's, professional diploma and finally a doctoral degree in 1970. It was the first doctoral degree ever awarded at Hofstra University.
"I went to Hofstra and I never left," Lenore said. She became a professor there and sat on over 100 doctoral committees before retiring. She maintains the title professor emerita at the university.
Lenore's second book will be a Web book and deal with the research of language development up to 1970. Today's students think of it as history; Lenore lived it. She said the book will be available online soon.
Although she retired from Hofstra, Sandel continues to teach. She leads a creative writing workshop at the Sandel Senior Center.
Her students compiled an anthology of their writings and in the introduction praised Lenore for doing exactly what her book encourages other teachers to do.
Maurice Gruber wrote a poem about Lenore and how she always praised the students and said "Keep writing."
