Abington Is Mourning A Former PA Teacher Of The Year.

ABINGTON TOWNSHIP, PA — A former Pennsylvania Teacher of the Year is being mourned by the Abington Township community after passing away last week.

Ralph Maltese died at age 78 on April 28, according to his obituary.

Maltese was Pennsylvania’s 2002 Teacher of the Year, teaching English, humanities, cinema, and just about every other configuration of language arts for 38 years at Abington Senior High School, his biography on The National Network of State Teachers of the Year states.

He was an early proponent of project-based learning and using technology in the classroom.

Maltese received a Fulbright Scholarship to study schools in Japan, where he became aware of the global commonalities of teaching.

He retired from teaching in 2008, but then served as a technology consultant for the state of Pennsylvania’s Classrooms for the Future initiative for three years. He also wrote three books about the art of teaching.

A turning point in his career occurred in 1989 when he won a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to participate in a summer workshop for teachers.

The experience helped him view teaching as the art and science of engaging students in the learning process and helped him implement the tool of collaborative learning to facilitate that engagement.

To continue expanding his teaching horizons, he participated in a Fulbright Memorial Fund Program. For three weeks, he toured Tokyo and Okinawa to study Japanese culture and education.

He concluded his career at Abington with two years as a technology coach, implementing the Classrooms for the Future vision, where teachers create dynamic projects using the latest Web 2.0 tools.

This commitment led to his part-time, post-retirement position with the Pennsylvania Department of Education as a Coach Mentor, working through intermediate units in the northeast region and helping direct the state’s commitment to technology in education.

“He was an early proponent of project-based learning and using technology in the classroom,” his obituary said. “For Ralph, the most significant benefit of this honor was the opportunity to meet dedicated teachers from around the country and the world and to spread the ‘gospel’ of quality teaching.”