2000 Outstanding Professor Award
Even
before she earned her teaching credential, Farah Lee Fisher, professor
of graduate education, was busy helping her classmates learn by tutoring them
so that they could earn their diploma.
Named "Outstanding Professor of the Year" at CSU Dominguez Hills, Professor Fisher is serving as chair of the Graduate Education Department in the School of Education. She has been a faculty member at CSU Dominguez Hills since 1991.
"There was never a time when I didn't want to be a teacher," Fisher says. The daughter of Midwestern farm parents, she grew up in rural Oregon and was the first in her family to attend college, much like many of the students at CSU Dominguez Hills.
Fisher received her bachelor's degree and credential in education with an emphasis on mathematics from Pacific Lutheran University. She received her master's degree in special education/educational technology from CSU Long Beach. And, she earned her doctorate in special education/educational technology at the University of Southern California.
Her first teaching job was in 1969 at a small rural high school, Orting High School, which hugs the foot of Mt. Rainier in Washington State. "If Mt. Rainier ever erupts, Orting will disappear," Fisher says.
After teaching mathematics there for a year, Fisher moved to California. She taught health-impaired students for two years at Paso Robles and at Shandon High schools in Northern California, before working as an educational therapist for seven years in Southern California.
From 1975-91, Fisher worked as an adapted computer technology specialist in special education and was a computer science instructor at Los Angeles Harbor College. From 1980-89, she was appointed adjunct professor in special education/research methods at CSU Long Beach.
Two years later, Fisher arrived at CSU Dominguez Hills, assigned to the Computer-Based Education program. For the 1998-99 academic year, she served also as acting director of Faculty Development. And, for 1999-2001, she is serving as chair of the Graduate Education Department.
"Dominguez
Hills is the real world," Fisher observes. "It's not some ivory tower that's
detached from the rest of the world. We are in the trenches, here. Some people
we serve wouldn't otherwise have a chance at an education. Some of the people
may be the first in their families to get a college education. There is an
urgency and vitality to what we do. Thats why I love it here."
There is not much difference between teaching special education and education technology, Fisher notes. The principles are the same: A good teacher is a good teacher.
"I have a prejudice toward special education," Fisher admits, "but there really isn't any difference between the two. You break those two subject areas down to their component parts, then put them back together, piece-by-piece, to help the students understand. For that reason, from my perspective, a good special education teacher would be good teaching other subjects, too."
After more than three decades, the grind of teaching has not worn Fisher down. In fact, she looks forward to returning to teaching full-time when she completes her appointment as department chair.
"When you're doing something you love, why do anything else?" Fisher concludes. "Why do I teach? I teach for that moment in a classroom that you see a student understand, for that spark of comprehension in their face that tells you, 'I get it.'
"That makes it worthwhile. That's why any of us teach…That is why I teach."
- T.W.
