Medfield High School History Teacher Retiring After 35 Years with District

During his 35-year career, history teacher Richard DeSorgher did everything he could to keep his students out of the classroom.

He created programs that had students canoeing on the Charles River, bicycling around town, thumbing through historical records at the Medfield Historical Society, and analyzing vital records at the Norfolk County Registry of Deeds -- many of those programs are still in effect today.

“I would try very much for hands-on activities,” said DeSorgher.  “I did as much as I could to get the kids out of the classroom and on field trips.”

DeSorgher is retiring later this month after 35 years of teaching history and political science to thousands of Medfield students.

DeSorgher said it is important to engage students in their education, to make it fun for them, particularly at the middle school level.

“I really liked the eighth grade," he said. "They were the older kids in the school; you could still do fun things with them. You have to make it exciting for them because, if you lose them in middle school, you’ve lost them forever. If you retain them in middle school and keep them interested and excited, then that will carry over into high school.”

DeSorgher was born and raised in Medfield, and graduated from Medfield High School, where his senior yearbook said he wanted to be a history teacher. He has always had an interest in United States history and political science. While a student at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, DeSorgher would hitch-hike back to Medfield to participate in Town Meeting.

After graduating from UMass Amherst in 1975, he started teaching in the Medfield School District in 1975 through a temporary agency that provided substitute teachers to local school districts. He was substitute teaching almost every day until April of 1976, when he was hired by Medfield as a permanent substitute history teacher to fill in for a history teacher who had been in a car accident. 

“In the meantime, Medfield was having its 325th anniversary in 1976 and I volunteered for the Anniversary Committee, and they decided they wanted a reenactment of the burning of Medfield in 1676,” said DeSorgher.  “My job was to do the research, I’ve always been big into doing the research part … I wrote the script for the burning of Medfield.”

While in his long-term substitute position, unbeknownst to DeSorgher, the teacher had submitted her resignation.

Then, fate intervened. 

“I was in the right place at the right time,” he says of what came next.

“After the reenactment was over, I went down to the Sunoco gas station and there was Acting Superintendent Jim Morris, who said he had just come from the reenactment. He asked if I wrote the script, then he asked me if I was interested in a teaching position in Medfield,” DeSorgher said.

DeSorgher taught 13 years at the middle school and 22 years at the high school, where he developed the district’s Advanced Placement United States History program and has been its only teacher since its inception.

During his many years with the district, he has taught United States History and Political Science courses, and has served as team leader and content specialist or department head. After serving as Content Specialist for several years, DeSorgher resigned from that role to return to the classroom full-time.

“I resigned as the Content Specialist so I could go back to the classroom, which I really liked,” he said. “Sometimes I think we’re in a cocoon here in Medfield, it just is a great place to be a teacher,” he said, referring to Medfield High School as ‘Camelot High.’ 

“I’ve been blessed with tremendous kids; people think I’m making it up.  They’re polite, they’re nice, they’re nice to each other, they’re just great kids … It’s enjoyable.”

Though he is resigning from the school district, he will continue to share his knowledge of history in another way.

DeSorgher, who is also the Medfield Town Historian, plans to write a follow-up to his first book, “History of the Town of Medfield, Massachusetts 1887-1925.”  The first volume, History of the Town of Medfield, Massachusetts: 1650-1886 was written by William Tilden in 1977.

“My goal for the immediate future would be to take the history through the next volume, Volume III, which would be 1926-1955 which I’ve been working on for six years but, because of the schedule, I haven’t had a lot of time to finish it,” said DeSorgher, who hopes to have the book published by January 2012.

When asked if he had any advice for anyone thinking about joining the teaching profession, the long-time veteran said, “I would have a love for the subject and I would have some passion for that subject, and I think that will reflect onto your kids … Get to know your students … It’s a great profession in the sense that it’s new and different each year; the kids keep you young -- really, it’s fun.”