By PAT NEWMAN
Staff Writer

Linda Brem has been teaching Shakespeare's “Hamlet” for many years at Fayette County High School.

She routinely highlighted the important vocabulary words, noted the characteristics of the bard's writing, and referred to the text for the basis of her lesson. Brem also showed a film version of “Hamlet.”

But last year, her approach was different. In her senior English class, students read the play and also watched excerpts from two adaptations of “Hamlet,” one with Mel Gibson and the other with Kenneth Branaugh. At the conclusion, Brem asked her students to tell which version “spoke to them” and why? The result was a lively discussion which brought setting, costuming, time period and actual dramatization into play.

Which was the better “Hamlet?” Whom did you empathize with?

The change in Brem's approach to “Hamlet” came as a result of rethinking her instructional techniques while preparing to become a certified teacher under the standards of the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards.

“English has changed as a discipline... we're moving into an integrated approach,” Brem said. “You look at literature as well as art and music. You look at a piece of literature and ask what it makes you see about a particular time... how does it speak to us today.”

Brem has the distinction of being the first national board-certified teacher in the Fayette County school district. What it means is that she has completed a rigorous six-month process of self-evaluation and judgment by the best of her peers, completed a day-long battery of tests and met the highest teaching standards in the country to become a “master teacher,” recognized in Georgia with a recommended 5 percent pay raise.

Brem was encouraged to participate in the program by her sister-in-law, Irene Goetze, who teaches a gifted middle school class outside Fayette County. After teaching for 29 years, Brem figured she was ready for a new challenge and she got it. “I learned so much... I feel like I earned another undergraduate degree in fine arts,” she said of her experience.

She is overwhelmingly enthusiastic about the national board certification process. “It's been a long time coming for this profession. It makes you feel that there's a level of accountability. You have to have the language background, the description of language and how it works... we're holding the kids accountable for that.”

As a language arts teacher, Brem recognizes that teaching literature in the information age has to be different. “The kids don't get emotionally engaged,” she said. When students “connect” with the subject matter and the world around them, Brem knows she has done her job.

While working on her portfolio, which is a series of exercises focused on classroom delivery, Brem said she would, “think about things a lot more... work from the end to the beginning. The fact of the matter is teaching English has changed, and this has made me look at things differently.”

Founded in 1987, the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards is an independent, not-for-profit group composed of 63 directors who are teachers, school administrators, legislators and community leaders. Their mission was to establish standards for teachers, setting the bar for what information they should know and how they should deliver it.

Teachers seeking board certification have six months to complete their portfolios and written exercises. Videotaped classes are submitted, along with extensive paperwork by the candidates.

Brem was recently informed that she had passed her exam and is now board certified. At the last Fayette school board meeting, Brem was recognized for her achievement by Dr. John DeCotis, school superintendent, who encouraged other teachers to look into the opportunity