English teacher Michael Lavezzo has replaced David Tarpinian as English teacher for the Academy of Integrated Humanities and New Media (AIM). Lavezzo will teach the AP Literature and Composition class in addition to the AP Language and Compositon class as part of AIM’s two-year cycle.

“I’m not making any changes to AIM really,” Lavezzo said. “You know, the goal of AIM is to integrate English and history with documentary filmmaking and for us as teachers we just want to find any opportunity we can to share ideas, share materials and push students to take what they’ve learned from all three subjects and apply it to very effective documentary films.”

Senior Lauren Lampl said the change is especially different for seniors, who have already completed a year of the program. “We have a new English teacher, so that is definitely a change for the seniors,” she said. “That is the most major change since [Tarpinian] had been in the program since the start, so I think the seniors are still adjusting to the new teaching methods in the English department.”

Although Lavezzo is new to the program, he said he has been a supporter of AIM since its creation. “There’s quite a bit of history to it actually…when Ms. Scharf, Mr. Goldstein and Mr. Tarpinian came up with the idea of AIM I was a big proponent of it,” he said, “and to a degree [I] kind of helped out with some of the planning for it.”

Lavezzo’s film experience extends to film projects in his previous classes. “I’ve made my own films, especially with the advent of digital video. [Digital video is] something that I got into as well as [film] editing. I’ve done my own video film projects with [my] English [classes],” Lavezzo said, “and the other thing is that I’m a pretty big film buff too, so I think that I have a pretty strong film appreciating background.”

“I’m excited,” he said. “Teachers should change because your ideas get refreshed, new environments stimulate you, and we should all do it.”