Movie Night, Hallway Jousting: Toms River Teacher Goes Above & Beyond

TOMS RIVER, NJ — On any given day, you may hear laughter or excited voices coming from Richard Cicala's fifth grade class at Hooper Avenue Elementary School.

If you're not careful, you could stumble upon a jousting match in the hallway.

That's because Cicala, the Applebee's Above & “Bee”yond Teacher honoree, will do anything to engage his students. The Above & "Bee"yond Teacher contest is offered only by Doherty-owned franchises.

"I just want to do something fun and original with them each and every day," Cicala said in a telephone interview. The fun hinges on the behavior of the class, and this group of fifth-graders has been stellar all year, Cicala said.

Cicala was nominated for the honor by student Rylie Goodale, who wrote an essay for the contest in February and submitted it at the Applebee's at Ocean County Mall.

"There is never a boring day in his classroom," Rylie, 11, wrote in her winning essay, where she described Cicala as outgoing, kind, enthusiastic and creative. "Mr. Cicala makes coming to school for me every day so exciting."

Rylie, who joined in the phone interview, said she nominated Cicala,"because you’re a great teacher and do a lot of fun things."

There was jousting in the school hallway after finishing reading "The Adventures of Don Quixote," with students scooting along on gym scooters, trying to knock each other off with pool noodles decorated like jousting poles.

There was the Coke-Mentos experiment — outside, of course — as part of a science unit on compound elements.

And then there was Movie Night, complete with snacks, after the class finished reading the story "Wonder."

"It's a book about a boy with a facial deformity," Cicala said, "and it's about being kind and choosing kindness. It sets the tone for the rest of the year."

After they finished reading it, the class was invited to come to watch the movie of the story in the classroom.

"It’s only our class," he said. "The kids had sleeping bags, popcorn, snacks" and from 6 p.m. to about 7:30 p.m. they were the only kids in the school.

"Everyone brought their sleeping bags and stuffies and we watched the movie on the big screen in the Inspire lab," Rylie wrote in her essay. "It was an awesome night! This is a night I will never forget."

Cicala, who is in his 20th year as a teacher, said the award is meaningful because of what it represents: that he has made an impression on his students.

"It’s super nice that they look at me that way, that Rylie and her peers respect me in that sense," he said, "that they trust me and that they know I have their best interests at heart."

"It’s nice to know your students are excited to be there," he said.

Cicala said Rylie had told him she had nominated him, but it was still a shock when he got the notification that he was being honored.

"They (his students) were all jumping up and down," he said. When Applebee's asked him if he wanted to bring his family, "I said sure, can I get a table for 26? Because they are all my family."

Cicala said this school year was the first since the start of the coronavirus pandemic where the classroom resembled the way he had taught before 2020.

"I got to do all the great things we used to do before," he said. And helping his students love learning is what keeps him going year after year.

"The goal, the endgame, is Rylie and her classmates," Cicala said. "You hope that you leave them with some sort of impression."